Ronit Baranga

About

Ronit Baranga is a contemporary Israeli sculptor and installation artist born in 1973 who began her artistic practice in the early 2000s. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Hebrew Literature from the University of Haifa, and later studied Art History at Tel-Aviv University and Practical Arts at Beit Berl College ('HaMidrasha'). Her interdisciplinary educational background in psychology, literature, and art history deeply informs her artistic practice, which investigates complex emotional states, human relationships, and the boundaries between the living and the inanimate. Baranga is renowned for her distinctive ceramic sculptures that merge everyday objects with human anatomical elements, creating surreal and often unsettling figurative works. Her practice has evolved from painting to ceramics, with clay becoming her primary medium of expression. She works intuitively, beginning pieces with mental images rather than preliminary sketches, and creates components separately before assembling them into cohesive sculptures. Her work explores themes of identity, control, consumption, and the transformation of utilitarian objects into autonomous agents with their own narratives. Her sculptures are characterized by their playful yet uncanny quality, featuring probing tongues and wandering fingers that give human agency to inanimate objects. Baranga's work has been exhibited internationally in prestigious venues and museums, and she has received significant recognition including the Israeli Ministry of Culture Award in 2016. Her pieces are held in major museum collections worldwide, including the Eretz Israel Museum, the National Museum of Slovenia, and the Yingge Ceramics Museum in Taiwan.

Contemporary surrealism; figurative art exploring the border between living and still life through the merger of human anatomical elements with everyday objects and utilitarian ceramics