Delaunay-Israël Yohanan
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Personal Writings:
→ 2013 - « André Robillard, hunter of dreams or portrait of the artist in search of others » in « André Robillard and Art Brut» (Exhibition catalog ISBN 978—2-910173-43-2)
Musée des Beaux Arts d’Orléans/CHD G. Daumezon→ 2012 -« Art Brut in the city : a public tribute from the hospital to André Robillard artworks »
in « Trait d’ union » CHD G. Daumezon→ 2011 – « Silent présence or the paths of drawing » in « Toi et Vous » (Exhibition booklet) FRAC CENTRE/CHD G DAUMEZON
http://www.ch-daumezon45.fr/CH_FLEURY_INTERNET/Ressources/file/2011-LivretSophieDubosc.pdf
→ 2010 - « The bounderies as patterns » in « Ai Kitahara " (Exhibition booklet ) FRAC CENTRE/CHD DAUMEZON
→ 2008 - « An artist residency in the psychiatric hospital » in « 47°54’13.62’’N 1°53’47.19’’E DN »
(Exhibition booklet) FRAC CENTRE/CHD G DAUMEZONhttp://www.ch-daumezon45.fr/CH_FLEURY_INTERNET/Ressources/2008-%20LivretDN.pdf
→ 2000 – « Biases / Partis pris » in « peintures » (Exhibition booklet) - the country where the sky is always blue–
→ 1991 – « The painting way – notes on a thérapeutic itinerary » School health executives, ST ANNE Mental Health Hospital PARIS
→ 1989 – « Notes » (Exhibition booklet) C.A.C. Orléans
→ 1983 – « About two experiences in a painter studio at the psychiatric hospital »
Psychiatric and mental health nursing school G. Daumezon Mental Health Hospital - Fleury les Aubrais – FranceSpecial Projects and other Activities
→ 2000 – 2015 : Cultural Manager at G. Daumezon Mental Health Hospital Fleury les Aubrais France
→ Ø Programming cultural and artistic activities inside and outside the hospital
http://beauxartsnantes.fr/colloque-art-psychiatrie-1
→ Ø Creating an artist residency of art and architecture in partnership with F.R.A.C. Centre :
Invited Artists: Laetitia Delafontaine/Gregory Niel, Ai Kitahara, Sophie Dubosq, Sarah Fauguet/David Cousinard,
Anne Le-Meehttp://www.frac-centre.fr/expositions/dans-les-murs/ceci-etait-ceci-etait-pas-598.html
https://rcoblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/20/anne-le-mee-jean-delaunay/
→ Ø Initiator of the monumental sculpture from André Robillard
http://www.chd-art-production.fr/blog/4153/
→ 1999 - 2003 : Co-founder of the artists collective « The country where the sky is always blue » in Orléans http://www.poctb.fr
→ Ø Creation of « the Borne / La Borne » for itinerant exhibitions of contemporary art and artistic exchanges with other artists groups.
→ 1983 – 1989 : Animator of artistic workshops (Paintings, Photo, Theatre) G. Daumezon Mental Health Hospital Fleury les Aubrais France
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Solo Exhibitions
→ 2024 - « 5784 » Delaunay-Israël Studio Kfar Etzion
→ 2023 - "Ici et maintenant" Delaunay-Israël Studio Kfar Etzion
→ 2021 - " Lishma " Oeuvres sur papier 2018/2021 Delaunay-Israël Studio Kfar Etzion
→ 2019 - "Epiphanies hiérosolymitaines" Delaunay-Israël Studio Kfar Etsion
→ 2017 - « News from past year » Delaunay-Israel Studio JERUSALEM
→ 2016 - « Open doors » Delaunay-Israël Studio - JERUSALEM
→ 2011 - « Le Pays Où le Ciel est Toujours Bleu » Gallery – ORLEANS
→ https://flic.kr/s/aHsjvkC6WT ; http://www.poctb.fr/spip.php?article129
→ 2006 - Municipal Gallery - JERUSALEM
→ 1998 - « Les Temps Modernes » Gallery - ORLEANS
→ 1997 - « Le Carré » Gallery - LILLE
→ 1997 - Louis Joseph Soulas School - Bazoches les Gallerandes (Loiret)
→ 1996 - Contemporary Art Center - Carré Saint- Vincent – ORLEANS
→ 1995 - Maurice Genevoix House - Saint Denis de l ‘Hôtel (Loiret)
→ 1992 - Gallery Louis Guilloux School - ORLEANS
→ 1989 - Contemporary Art Center - Carré Saint- Vincent ORLEANS
→ 1988 - Gallery L’ Aire du Verseau Paris
Selected Group Exhibitions
→ 2026 - "Renaissance: Reimagining the Classics" Curator Anatoly Baratynsky Cultural center Jerusalem
→ 2022 - "Nature and landscape in Israeli contemporary Art" Curator: Dr Avivit Agam Dali Phd Ramat-Gan
→ 2021 - "Aliénation" Virtual exhibition Curator: Dr Avivit Agam Dali PhD
→ 2020 - "Absract" Virtual exhibition Curator: Dr Avivit Agam Dali PhD
→ 2017 - « Simples means to plenty : Drawings » Miklat leoumanout -JERUSALEM
→ 2016 - « New wave / New view » Harmony hall, the Cultures’center - JERUSALEM
→ Menahem Begin Center JERUSALEM ;
→ Ephrat Gallery – TEL-AVIV ;
→ Cultural Center – RICHON LE TSION
→ 2007 - « Berechit » Musée Hechal Shlomo JERUSALEM
→ 2002 - « Dialogues » : Delaunay/Mazuy. - VIERZON
→ 2001 - « Etats d’Arts/ Etats d’Âmes » Espace Malraux JOUE LES TOURS
→ 2000 - Michel Ronfard School - OLIVET ; « Le pays où le ciel est toujours bleu » Ipso Facto Gallery - NANTES
→ 1995 - « Sketchbooks » Contemporary Art Center – Carré St Vincent – ORLEANS
→ 1987 - Salon Grands et Jeunes d ‘Aujourd’hui - PARIS ;
→ Salon de Montrouge - MONTROUGE ;
→ Salon Révélation - PARIS
→ 1986 - Salon Grands et Jeunes d ‘Aujourd’hui - PARIS
Monographs and Exhibitions Catalogs:
→ 2011 – « Away from dust / Loin de la poussière » Text by Jean Delaunay (Exhibition booklet P.O.C.T.B.)
→ 2003 « S.Turpin, J. Delaunay et L. Mazuy, S. Bordarier et C. Cuzin » Text by Tristan Trémeau (Art-Press N°287)
→ 2002 « Dialogues » Text by Tristan Trémeau (Exhibition booklet, Vierzon)
→ 1998 « Tant et Temps » Art Sérigraphs Text by Jean Dominique Burtin (Booklet of Edition Dubois Imageries)
→ 1996 « Paint with reserve /Peindre avec réserve » Text by Tristan Trémeau (Exhibition catalog, C.A.C. Orléans)
→ 1989 « The laying time/La pose du temps » Text by Christian Bonnefoi (Exhibition catalog, C.A.C. Orléans)
→ 1983 « 146 Créateurs of E.N.A.D. 72.83 » International School of Fine Arts- Villa Arson - Nice
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→ 1991 Scholarship from the Head Office for Cultural Affairs in Région Centre
→ 2015 Aid to olim artists: mention « particularly excellent » Ministry of Allya and Intégration
→ 2023 Art Maters 2023 Top9 Galerie Biesenbach Cologne Germany
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→https://www.delaunay-israel.com
→https://www.facebook.com/JeanYohanan.DelaunayIsrael
→https://www.instagram.com/jeanyohanandelaunay/
→https://www.saatchiart.com/jydelaunayisrael yohanan-delaunay-isra
→https://www.artsper.com/lu/artistes-contemporains/israel/11107/j-y-delaunay-israel
→https://fr.artprice.com/artiste/688527/jean-yohanan-delaunay
→https://aatonau.com/yohanan-delaunay-israel-the-confluence-of-art-and-healing/
Born 09/ 22 /1955 in Bressuire (Deux - Sèvres) FRANCE
Lives and works in Jérusalem ISRAEL
Studies
1974-1976 Institute of Visual Arts - Orléans
1976-1979 National School of Fine Arts- Villa ARSON – Nice
1980-1983 School of psychiatric Nurse – G Daumezon Hospital – Fleury les Aubrais
1990 School of Health Executives – St Anne Hospital –Paris
1999 EHESP School of Public Health – Rennes
Born in France in 1955, I live and work in Jerusalem since 2015.
I started painting with a friend in an evening class at school. He liked to draw, I liked to paint. We both entered the Institute of Visual Arts in Orléans (1975/76), and then I was admitted to the Art Department of the Villa Arson - National School of Fine Arts in Nice - (1976/79). After graduating, I trained as a house painter and then studied to become a psychiatric nurse (1980/1983). I already knew a little about hospitals and their patients, having worked there every summer as a ward attendant during my studies at the School of Fine Arts. Becoming a psychiatric nurse and then a nursing supervisor at the Georges Daumezon Mental Health Center in Loiret, I combined painting and psychiatry almost daily. Along with fatherhood and Judaism, they were my only true sustenance.
In Orléans and Nice, I discovered : the beginnings of abstraction, Support/Surface, American painting, but also prehistoric Art —the birth of art according to Georges Bataille— the Quattrocento, and Chinese painting. We had to know "everything" about the works that preceded us, and particularly those of the 20th century. We had , in some way, to answer for our own work in front of them. All the paths of contemporary art were open to us. Somewhat against the grain, I chose painting rather than Marcel Duchamp's path.
At the beginning of my nursing studies, I also met André Robillard a former patient. He lived at the hospital ; he drew, assembled, amassed, and collected in what served as both his home and studio. I was discovering the « raw art » of « ordinary men at work » to use Jean Dubuffet's phrase, but also the expressions of madness, as described by Dr. Jean Oury and Henri Maldiney. This was evident in the often ephemeral works of patients —poems, drawings, songs, confidences, words— coming from the depths of their being, as well as in the writings of Antonin Artaud.
In 1984, after a detour through landscape, still life, and self-portraiture, I returned to painting where I had "left" it. That is to say, at the heart of a diamond-shaped geometric composition created in Nice in 1977. I returned to my practice: working on a flat surface, with compositional lines exceeding the canvas size, while moving away from the expressionism and immediacy of my early work, using slow gestures and transparent, fluid colors.
I began working from compositional principles drawn from art history and geometry (circular symmetry, Borromean knots, the harmonic progression of the square, the geometric construction of the Golden Ratio, and later, the harmonic decomposition of the square, rectangle, and Matila Ghyka's spiral of harmonious growth).
Everything begins randomly, like a roll of the dice: the placement of geometric shapes derived from the compositional principles on the canvas or stretched paper. Each element carries the design of the six or seven others that compose it: lines and shapes emerge from this interweaving, itself carrying many more to come. Flat gestures and lines, white, black, or colored, will, in turn, anchor themselves to these creations in the unforeseen nature of a form of "free association." Each element has its own life; it is first drawn or painted "in white" to imagine and anticipate when, where, and how it might appear in the painting. I paint them by obscuring what surrounds them and discover, a posteriori, the events resulting from their juxtaposition. The application of the layers itself decomposes in the thickness of time, and the transparency allows us to perceive the different strata of the painting's emergence. Without sketches or preliminary work, I generally work on several paintings simultaneously, sometimes up to five or six. The more there are, the more easily I can forget about them and rediscover them with surprise. I intervene at least once in each session, without hesitation, on a part of each one. It is only in this way that I manage to make their emergence my own.
In 1989, in the paragraph entitled "Epiphanies" from the "Notes" compiled to present the exhibition of works from the "Compositions" series, I wrote: "The fascination exerted on me by the minute changes produced by the application of a layer on the canvas was undoubtedly the driving force behind this 'repetitive' practice." The abandonment of repetition occurred when, along the way, I discovered that its justification lay not in the purpose I had initially assigned it (to produce unique colors) but rather in the possibility of being able to paint with and on what fascinated me.
This is still true today.
I remain fascinated by the unfolding of a painting's emergence: the first moments of the painting, the unexpected appearance of its drawings, the gradual build-up of its intensity, and I try to paint in such a way that everyone can glimpse this process as much as the landscape it opens onto.
PS: My works have been exhibited in France and Israel and are featured on several contemporary art websites and in galleries. Two catalogs published by the Centre d’Art Contemporain de la Scène Nationale d’Orléans have been dedicated to me, with texts by the painter Christian Bonnefoi, “The Pose of Time,” and by the art historian Tristan Trémeau, “Painting with Restraint.” I have also written several pieces about my work, as well as about the artistic workshops and cultural projects I have led in the hospital.
Co-founder of the artists' collective "Le Pays Où le Ciel est Toujours Bleu" (The Land Where the Sky is Always Blue), I was also responsible for cultural projects at the Georges Daumezon Psychiatric Hospital (E.P.S.M.) from 2000 to 2015. This included establishing an "Art and Architecture" artist residency in partnership with the Frac Centre, as well as creating a monumental rifle with André Robillard for the institution's centenary.
Jerusalem, November 7, 2025
