Ilana Portnoy

Luni / Ilana Portnoy is a visual artist whose work explores freedom, identity, and the invisible expectations society places upon us. Born in Israel in 1995 to a family of immigrants from Belarus who arrived after the Chernobyl disaster, she grew up between cultures - an experience that shaped her sensitivity to belonging and individuality.

Art became her way to understand the world and express what words could not. She earned a B.Des in Visual Communication from Shenkar College in 2020, where she created Luni: genderless, naked figures living in nature, free from the roles and definitions society imposes.

Luni emerged as a response to these unseen structures - borders, identities, labels, and cultural scripts that divide people from one another and from themselves. By removing gender, clothing, and symbols, Luni returns to something essential: the simple truth of being a body in nature, unclaimed by any nation, religion, or system.

The figures are not tied to a single emotional state. They experience the full spectrum of human feeling—quiet, fear, longing, softness, sadness, lightness, and joy. Their vulnerability challenges the idea that freedom must be euphoric; instead, it suggests that truth lives in the entire emotional ra...

2016 - 2020: Bachelor of Design - Visual Communication, Shenkar college

2025: Group exhibition - Summer unveiled, Wertheimer gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel.
• 2025: Group exhibition - Unveiled, Firepit gallery, Curated by: Veronika Khenevich, London,
United Kingdon.
•2025 - Certificate of Artistic Achievement, Luxembourg Art Prize
Received from the Pinacothèque Museum as part of the international selection process. Award
given to outstanding emerging artists demonstrating exceptional artistic quality.
• 2025: Group exhibition - “Classic and pop meet”, Curated by: Moran Jacobi, ZOA House, Tel
Aviv, Israel
• 2021: Group exhibition - Now and then, Cultiva, Tel Aviv, Israel.
• 2020: Group exhibition -Graduation exhibition, Shankar college of art and design