Projects & Artworks by Year
This page presents a chronological overview of Amili Gelbman's projects and artworks over the years. Each year reflects a distinct phase in her artistic process, with connections between personal memory, identity, and vulnerability, within cultural and social contexts.
The works include painting, drawing, collage, and mixed techniques on paper and canvas, exhibited in solo shows and international frameworks.
From the early 2000s to the present, this timeline traces the evolution of a personal visual language that reveals an ongoing exploration of material, body, and time.
2025 MAY
"Soul Bird in the Drawers of Memory" is a multi-layered work by Amili Gelbman, presenting an artistic journey into the processing of personal and collective trauma and memory. Using charcoal, ink, and graphite drawings, the artist combines fragments of memories and embedded texts, which together create a visual mosaic of pain, betrayal, but also of hope and growth. The work deals with a narrative of coping with national trauma through personal details, using images of birds and childhood that represent a longing for freedom and inner strength. The white outlines and the yellow electrical tape serve as symbols of healing, mending, and preserving memories, and emphasize the human resilience to create new meaning from within the brokenness.
2025 APRIL
"Borderline States: Between Body and Memory"
The works are presented in an intimate scale (30×40 cm),
allowing for physical and emotional proximity to the imagery.
The combination of compressed paper, embroidery threads, graphite, and ink creates a sense of delicate, fragile craftsmanship
that carries a deep emotional charge.
Within the visual space, images of embryos or sleeping women appear alongside the figure of a menacing dog emerging from the darkness.
This contrast evokes a sense of unease and opens a path to a journey into repressed areas,
into the fine cracks of the psyche.
The embroidery threads stitched into the figures resemble seams of trauma,
weaving the wound into memory.
2025 M A R C H
Creative Dialogue: Painting and Poetry
A collaboration between Rachel Ben Menachem (Poetry) and Amily Gelbman (Painting)
This project is a creative dialogue between two artists: the poet Rachel Ben Menachem and the painter Amily Gelbman. It is a shared journey that bridges two separate art forms, with each artist responding to the other's work and creating an ongoing conversation.
The process is a dialogue through words and paintings. The poetry is born from and inspired by the painting, creating a unique connection between the two forms of expression.
Through this collaboration, the artworks are created from deep layers of memory. The creative process reveals new dimensions in the paintings, some of which were previously unknown. Together, they allow themselves to look inward and give space to the voices and images that seek to be revealed through poetry and paint.
2025 O C T O B E R
The series of works created in October 2025 in Lisbon emerges from a period marked by emotional complexity, particularly around the context of hostage releases. This collection represents a deep exploration into the human figure and its emotional landscape, focusing on the tension between figuration and abstraction. The paintings, executed in acrylic on canvas, are small in size (30x40 cm and 25x35 cm), presenting figures that are not always immediately recognizable in a realistic sense but are instead emotional and psychological translations.
The works investigate the relationship between the figure and its background, where the background itself often becomes a space that either contains or merges with the figure, creating a sense of fluidity and tension. The figures are painted in a deliberately simplified, sometimes blurred, and unfinished style—aiming to preserve the emotional and spiritual essence of the character rather than adhering to precise visual details.
The work reflects the internal world of these figures, who often appear as strangers passing by us—figures we see fleetingly on a screen or in a moment, only to forget shortly after. This cycle of remembering and forgetting challenges the viewer to look deeper, to uncover the emotions and meanings hidden behind these ephemeral presences.
2024 M A R C H
"Personal Portrait within a Grey Zone"
The series was created as part of a project in Bucharest, emerging from an observation of what unfolds around us in a charged, grey space. It is a journey through the memory of distant experiences, evolving through intuitive and layered processes: from the blank page, through images devoid of clear outlines, to the crystallization of the idea. The process combines reflection, inner understanding, and deep attentiveness to each stage of creation.
The works are executed with dry materials — charcoal, pencils, ink, and acrylic — on compressed paper in sizes 25×30 cm and 20×25 cm. The dry medium and varied techniques evoke an emotional undertow, with blurred images that allude to memories and mixed sensations.
The work bridges the personal and the global, exploring the ability to maintain a sense of security and emotional poise even in complex times. It shapes an encounter between external, traumatic experiences and an inner space that enables resilience and renewal.
The chosen title reflects an inner search within a chaotic, grey zone — a testimony to a time of uncertainty, yet also an invitation to explore the self and examine the unconscious. The interplay of dry materiality and abstract imagery creates a visual language that weaves together feelings, memories, and moments, offering a personal approach to navigating the passage of time and an ever-shifting reality.