“Had to have high, high hopes for a living. Shooting for the stars when I couldn’t make a killing. Didn’t have a dime but I always had a vision. Always had high, high hopes.” High Hopes. Song by Panic! At the Disco
In his new exhibit, “High,” Koresh, self-proclaimed artist-provocateur, exposes us to his escapist world as he interprets it. The exhibition focuses on the artist’s internal dialogue between the ideal and reality. His art, created to help the artist escape the boredom and monotony of everyday life, is intended to ignite the imagination, passions, and emotions of his viewers.
Born with a delicate face and a masculine body, the artist likes to dress up. For him, the separation between the sexes is only semantic, and he uses it as a visual tool. In his art, he presents archetypal men and women, but also mixes them indiscriminately. His men are all gay and exude a type of sexuality that precludes clothing. His women, on the other hand, are dressed in vibrant, fashionable attire, and symbolize softness, wisdom, mystique, and beauty.
Koresh aimed his exhibition for Pride Month. “I am a gay artist. Pride Month is for me. The contents of my art come from this world. This is my identity. I feel comfortable here and it represents me. Gays understand my way of thinking.” Koresh likes to see himself as part of a genealogy of homosexual artists. He points out that a tour of the world’s major museums, from the Louvre to the Metropolitan, to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, reveals that homosexual art, that is, art produced by homosexuals but not presented as such, is hiding in the closet. In fact, many artists of the Renaissance were known as lovers of their kind, even if they did not say so explicitly.
In addition to Renaissance artists, Koresh receives inspiration from more contemporary artists, some of whom touch the LGBT community, including Jeff Koons, Will Cotton, and Michael Kors. Additional inspiration comes from his field of work and the world of games. As a veteran art director with years of experience in graphic design and 2D art, Koresh oversees artistically driven cross-platform games.
A graduate of Shenkar College in art, Koresh has presented and participated in several exhibitions in Israel and abroad. He published his first book; an illustrated novel called The Black City of Nuerva. He is currently working on turning the book into a comic, in addition to writing two sequels in comic form.
Naomi Gordon-Chen, curator
Omri Koresh (b. 1986) is a multidisciplinary artist, author, and art director whose work bridges fine art, narrative fiction, and digital media. Known for his vivid, surreal aesthetic and exploration of identity, fantasy, and transformation. Koresh creates immersive worlds that blur the line between visual art and storytelling. His recent projects include the acclaimed TLV exhibition HIGH (2023), which examines escapism and self-image, and the development of the illustrated novel The Black City of Nuerva, and writing two follow-up comics.
Koresh’s creative practice spans painting, sculpture, illustration, and game art, often featuring hyper-real figures and theatrical compositions that question beauty, gender, and reality itself. Alongside his fine-art work, he is expanding into comics and cross-platform interactive projects, using his distinct visual language to tell emotionally charged, otherworldly stories. Through his art and writing, Omri Koresh invites audiences into spaces where imagination and identity collide — a blend of dark elegance, human vulnerability, and fantasy made real.