The Fresh Paint art and design fair opened this week in Tel Aviv and runs through June 29 at the Kremnitski 7 technical center, under the sponsorship of Harel Insurance & Finance and Zurich. The event is packed into a large hangar and includes solo, duo and group exhibitions, with 26 gallery booths and curatorial projects, plus a dedicated incubator for emerging artists.
This year’s incubator features 47 creators. Its Israel Makov Prize for a promising artist comes with NIS 20,000 and a solo booth at Fresh Paint 2027. The 2026 incubator winner is Lilach Segal, whose work grew out of observing Tel Aviv sidewalks and local vegetation. Another participant, Michal Yaari, left more than 30 years as an Ichilov midwife for art, and now embroiders body parts, moles and sun marks on large canvases to explore human flaws and the beauty of aging.
The design section will host about 50 product, ceramic, paper, glass, furniture and lighting designers. Returning names include Studio Monc and Shaul Cohen, who moved from yellow hostage pins to pins shaped like Israeli snacks such as Makoplet, Bissli and red Bamba. The fair is also launching the Tzvi Yemini Design Prize, worth NIS 30,000 plus mentorship from industrialist and entrepreneur Tzvi Yemini. Its first winner is Plaid by Tamar Eisenberg and Avi Ben Shushan, a modular mold system for ceramic casting.
Several featured works play with local memory and material transformation. Dudu Dahan’s “Fish Stall” uses ceramics, copper, wood and metal mesh, with each fish wrapped in newspaper printed with its sketch. Dana Bernhard created a sardines installation from crushed sardine tins, and buyers can remove a pin from the work. The fair’s social flagship, the “Secret Postcard” project, again supports ICF, which aids 557 children orphaned in the October 7 attack, with all proceeds donated. More than 1,500 anonymous works are sold for NIS 190 each, and purchases qualify for a 35 percent tax deduction under Section 46. The fair says the project has raised nearly NIS 3 million over 16 years.
