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Israeli-born painter Yigal Ozeri wears two wrist watches. One shows the time in New York, the city in which he lives and where he built a career. The other shows the time in Tel Aviv, where his latest exhibition, Reality Check, is now on display at the Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery.Ozeri is just as happy to point to the various pendants he wears – each holding an interesting crystal from a land he has visited – as he is to express his pride in his son, Adam, an attacking midfielder for the Argentinian team Ferro Carril Oeste. His charms don’t just hang in the air. Ozeri, with his mane of gray hair and an easy smile, is one of the most successful painters today in the genre known as photorealism. This form of painting, which seeks to reach rare technical mastery in depicting the world humans can see, is often described as one possible answer to the question, “What is painting good for in the age of the camera?”

Yigal Ozeri, and will take place at the Zimak Gallery . Ozeri's paintings are known for their hyper-realistic style, and in this series his works are steeped in innocence and sincerity. The series symbolizes a significant development in the artist's creative approach, and it shows one of the most dramatic changes his work has undergone to date. From the hit motif typical of it - portraits of women in the middle of lush nature, it shifts to the extreme and colorful urbanity of New York. Alongside this, there is also the series of paintings "Tel Aviv Stories" in which Ozeri returns to his roots, to the city that raised him, to Tel Aviv and its images.

New York-based artist Yigal Ozeri, who was featured in Juxtapoz Hyperreal book back in 2014, recently opened his third solo show with Amsterdam's Rutger Brandt Gallery. As introduced at Untitled Art Fair Miami, A New York Story presents a new direction in Ozeri's work that comprises of images capturing everyday life in one of the world's art capitals. By coming to Amsterdam's Rutger Brandt Gallery, Ozeri seeks to create a connection between two cities that are historically very closely-connected. A step away from his signature motif of distinctive young women in lush natural landscapes, A New York Story views the artist's vibrant hometown as an ever-changing source of inspiration in a significant change of aesthetic that makes the new work feel that much more authentic and dynamic. Enhanced by Ozeri's impeccable painterly technique and ability to capture profound details, this coherent selection of works provides snapshots of NYC's most idiosyncratic gems.

Born of the late ‘60s, photorealism is a strange beast, even by the standards of that era’s diverse and often discomfiting new art movements. Based on the meticulous transcription of photographs, typically taken by the artist and recording ordinary urban scenes, a group of New York and California painters developed an approach that presents itself as both radical and reactionary. The style borrows its characteristic techniques from the world of commercial art: the tracing of projected images, airbrushing, and luridly synthetic colors. Those of us accustomed to the aesthetics of more traditional painting are apt to hesitate, if not recoil. Likewise, the matter-of-fact emphasis on the most banal aspects of contemporary American culture (readily familiar, despite the distinct period look of the early work) diverges uncomfortably from both the metaphor and sentiment of mainstream realism and the ironic social commentary of pop art, photorealism’s most obvious predecessor. It’s easy to write off the movement as kitsch: suitable perhaps for calendar art but hardly the museum.