Uzi Buzgalo

I was born in Afula, Israel, and I was the first deaf child in the town. I used drawing as a way to communicate with my family and others. I attended Jerusalem School for the Deaf throughout my childhood and adolescent years. At the age of 11, I began studying art at the Museum of Israel in Jerusalem. From 1973 to 1975, I studied lithography and sculpture at the Art Museum of Tel Aviv. After this, I continued studying art in an art residency, Ein Yod, in Haifa. In addition, I danced with a professional dance company, Kol Demama (sound-silence), which was internationally known for its deaf and hearing dancers. My company traveled all over the world for years. During that time I designed and created many different background settings for dance performances. Afterward I continued to travel all over Europe for several years where the beauty of signed languages shaped my art style, which is a composition of colors and hands with stories of similar experiences, a way of artistically depicting the language and culture of deaf people. My works are represented in collections in Israel and all over in the Europe and United States. I am fluent in three languages, Israeli Sign Language, American Sign Language, and Hebrew.

As an artist I offer my own historical accounts as a deaf Jewish person growing up in Israel and several countries with exposures of different signed languages and cultures. My current art works including past ones depict our languages and culture experiences with a sense of having a total contentment of multi-language-culture experiences that continually enrich deaf folks. Flows of movement are seen with hands that express language as they blossom into rich myriad of words and thoughts. They are complemented with warm bold Mediterranean colors of ruggedness and intrepidity to embrace human experiences in more authentic sense. To attune effects, I make frames to coordinate my painting works in series and different sizes of choices.