Doron Langberg (; born 1985) is an American painter. Langberg paints in the style of genre painting and portraiture and addresses issues of gender and sexuality by making love and desire a shared experience through the surface and subjects of his paintings.

Early life and education

Langberg was born and raised in Yokneam Moshava,

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. He has been painting since he was in primary school. He notes that retrospectives by Lucien Freud and

Avigdor Arikha Avigdor Arikha (; April 28, 1929 – April 29, 2010) was a Romanian-born French–Israeli artist, printmaker and art historian. Biography Victor Długacz (later Avigdor Arikha) was born to German-speaking Jewish parents in Rădăuţi, but grew ...

inspired him to start making figurative work. Langberg graduated from

Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1805, it is the longest continuously operating art museum and art school in the United States. The academy's museum ...

in 2010 and

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

's MFA program in 2012.

Work

In 2015, Langberg was included in a two-person exhibition with artist Gaby Collins-Fernandez at Danese Corey gallery in New York. Jarrett Earnest of ''

The Brooklyn Rail ''The Brooklyn Rail'' is an American publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics, based in Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, critics, and ...

'' wrote of the painters, "It seems that Doron’s paintings create an inner world, which corresponds to our world and pulls us into the picture psychologically; whereas Gaby’s paintings set in motion a chain of associations that move outward, through their materials and forms—like the cheap crushed red velvet, for instance—towards references outside the painting." In 2018, Langberg had his first solo exhibition in New York, ''Nothing Personal'', at 1969 Gallery. The show included fourteen mostly figurative paintings made during his time at the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program and featured some of the artist's largest works to date, including several 96 x 80 inch canvases. The paintings, rich with complex, impermanent surfaces, depicted various domestic scenes, such as figures sleeping, frolicking in bed, showering, and lounging, as well as several cropped portraits. Langberg co-curated a group show, ''Four'', at Yossi Milo Gallery in spring of 2019. The group exhibition featured works by Felipe Baeza, Julia Bland, Arghavan Khosravi, and Oren Pinhassi. ''Likeness'', Langberg's first solo exhibition at Yossi Milo gallery opened in late 2019. Works in the exhibition are both small-scale portraits and large-scale scenes from direct observation of family, close friends and lovers in which the artist contextualizes queer sexuality and intimacy within larger narratives of life. In a recent interview with Hyperallergic, Langberg says,

"Even with the sexual imagery, my intention was not to be shocking or explicit. It’s part of our everyday life. There’s something very intimate, but also something very casual about seeing your partner naked, for example. Experiencing those moments is part of who we are in the world."

Eric Sutphin wrote of Langberg's work in Art in America that.. "Despite an atmosphere of relative contentment, things in Langberg’s works often feel impermanent. Edges blend and passages are wiped or scraped away to reveal the canvas underneath. Such techniques convey the sense of fading memories." Langberg adds, "A lot of my works are of people that are close to me, so friends, family, lovers etcetera, so the painting usually starts with an idea about the image, like who I want to paint, and some sort of formal idea: either a

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography * Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include ...

, or a color scheme, a certain kind of materiality I want to use with the paint handling and that would be kind of the impetus to make the painting." In 2020, Langberg was commissioned by the

Public Art Fund Public Art Fund is an independent, non-profit arts organization founded in 1977 by Doris C. Freedman. The organization presents contemporary art in New York City's public spaces through a series of highly visible artists' projects, new commissions ...

to paint "Joe and Edgar", a portrait of the artists Edgar Mosa and Joe McShea that was displayed on bus shelters throughout

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. Langberg has noted a wide range of influences, such as

David Hockney David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English Painting, painter, Drawing, draughtsman, Printmaking, printmaker, Scenic design, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considere ...

Vincent Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artworks ...

Édouard Vuillard Jean-Édouard Vuillard (; 11 November 186821 June 1940) was a French painter, decorative artist, and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, Vuillard was a member of the avant garde artistic group Les Nabis, creating paintings that assembled areas ...

Pierre Bonnard Pierre Bonnard (; 3 October 186723 January 1947) was a French painter, illustrator and printmaker, known especially for the stylized decorative qualities of his paintings and his bold use of color. A founding member of the Post-Impressionist gr ...

Mickalene Thomas Mickalene Thomas (born January 28, 1971) is a contemporary African-American visual artist best known as a painter of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel.

Alice Neel Alice Neel (January 28, 1900 – October 13, 1984) was an American visual artist. Recognized for her paintings of friends, family, lovers, poets, artists, and strangers, Neel is considered one of the greatest American portraitists of the 20th ...

, and

Wolfgang Tillmans Wolfgang Tillmans (born 16 August 1968) is a German Fine-art photography, photographer. His diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. Tillman ...

. He is a part of a loosely-affiliated group of LGBTQ painters, sometimes called the New Queer Intimists, which also includes his contemporaries

Salman Toor Salman Toor (born 1983) is a Pakistani painter based in the United States. His works depict the imagined lives of young men of South Asian-birth, displayed in close range in either South Asia and New York City fantasized settings. Toor lives and ...

Louis Fratino Louis Fratino (born 1993) is an American visual artist. Education Fratino graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD in 2015. Fratino was a recipient of a Fulbright Research Fellowship in Painting, Berlin, 2015–201 ...

, Kyle Coniglio, Anthony Cudahy, TM Davy, and

Devan Shimoyama Devan Shimoyama (born 1989 in Philadelphia) is a contemporary African-American visual artist best known as a painter that uses mixed mediums in their work. Shimoyama's work is inspired by Black, queer, and male bodies from a personal perspective. T ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Langberg, Doron Living people 1985 births Israeli emigrants to the United States 21st-century Israeli painters 21st-century American painters Painters from Brooklyn Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni Yale School of Art alumni Date of birth missing (living people) Israeli contemporary artists