Lior Modan

Lior Modan (b. 1983, Tel Aviv) lives and works in New York. His practice operates in constant slippage between distinct territories: painting and object, abstraction and figuration, the gestural and the surreal. Modan builds low-relief wall works by sculpting forms from wood, sand, epoxy, and household objects, then vacuum-forming hand-dyed velvet over them, sealing recognizable and quasi-recognizable shapes under a single textile surface. The softness and tactility of the velvet lends the images a shifting, holographic instability, so that each work reads differently depending on light, shadow, and the viewer's position.

Modan received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University's Sculpture + Extended Media program (2013) and his BFA with honors from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (2009). Solo exhibitions include Bread and Magic, Hesse Flatow, New York (2026); The Foundations, Dinner Gallery, New York (2025); Peer Capital, CPM, Baltimore (2024); The One-Two-Three Stones, Make Room, Los Angeles (2021); Triumph, Chicago (2017); Golconda Gallery, Tel Aviv (2016); and NURTUREart, Brooklyn (2015).

His work has been exhibited in group exhibitions at the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, the Haifa Museum, and the Petach-Tikva Museum in Israel, and at Marinaro Gallery, New York; Peana, Mexico; and Harkawik, Los Angeles, among others. Residencies include the LMCC Workspace Residency, New York (2013–14). His work has been featured in The Observer, Architectural Digest, Wallpaper, and Hyperallergic.