Ortal Barel is the Recipient of the Ilana Elovic-Bezalel Prize for Excellence in the Arts 2026

Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem together with Dr. Eugene Elovic and Family are proud to announce that the recipient of the Ilana Elovic-Bezalel Prize for Excellence in the Arts 2026 is Ortal Barel. Barel is a graduate of Bezalel’s Master’s Program in Fine Arts (M.F.A.) and of Bezalel’s Undergraduate Program in Architecture. 

According to the Selection Committee: "The members of the Elovic Prize Committee have selected Ortal Barel as the recipient of the Alrovic Prize for 2026, in recognition of her distinctive and consistent body of work. Her Practice has developed impressively through a sculptural-spatial language that brings architecture and art together as two imagined and tangible realms of exceptional and compelling visual quality. Barel, whose original training is in architecture, uses the architectural model as a point of departure for constructing spectral spaces, spaces that are at once tangible environments and models of social and psychological realms. Stadiums, terminals, waiting areas, and public structures undergo a process of distillation and suspension and emerging as spaces charged with memory, anticipation, anxiety, and the possibility of collapse. Through the use of paper, light, and shadow, Barel constructs a precise monochromatic world in which clarity and obscurity, sharpness and darkness, stability and fragility coexist. Her control of scale and of the relationships between model, sculpture, and space enables her to transform architectural language into a stage for exploring social and psychological states.”

Selection Committee Members: Chair - Jossef Krispel, Head of the Department of Fine Arts
Prof. Sharon Yaari, lecturer in the Department of Photography; Sharon Balaban, lecturer in the Department of Screen Based Arts
Roni Cohen Binyamini, curator at Ashdod Art Museum.

The prize ceremony in the presence of Dr. Eugene Elovic and family will be held on October 19, 2026 at the Ilana Elovic Gallery in Bezalel Academy's Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Campus.

Previous recipients of the Prize are: Gilad Ashery (2025), Ron Asulin (2024), Essa Grayeb (2023), Danielle Kaganov (2022), Tal Engelstein (2021), Asaf Elkalai (2018), Oree Holban (2017), Esther Schneider (2016), Yitzhak Golombek (2014).

Ilana Elovic passed away in 2006 after battling with cancer. Ilana dedicated her life to art, and worked in different mediums, including painting, ceramics, glass and jewelry design. Upon learning of her illness, Ilana began to engage almost exclusively in her artistic work.

The prize in memory of Ilana is intended to help and encourage young artists at the start of their careers and is awarded to graduates of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem, up to 7 years from their graduation.