Or Fainaru (b. 1997), who lives and works in Haifa, is a multidisciplinary artist.

He holds a BA in Art and History of the Jewish People (2020) and a teaching certificate (2021) from Haifa University. He is a graduate of the Rothschild program for excelling young artists and has participated in group exhibitions in Israel and abroad, including The Mediterranian Biennial of Contemporary Art, Haifa; Mediations Biennale, Istanbul; and Social Bauhaus, Haifa. He has had a solo exhibition at the Da Drom Art Center in Germany (2021) and was selected to exhibit at the Havana Biennial, Cuba, in 2024.

The project Nova is a series of works on horror, anxiety, fear and madness.

The Israeli trans scene came about during the first Intifada. Soldiers who had finished their army service traveled to India and returned with new ideas and sounds. The creators, DJs and ravers created electronic music that suited the atmosphere in Israel, with each track a wholehearted, unapologetic devotion to enjoyment and escapism.

On October 7, hundreds of young revelers who came to celebrate life were confronted by the exact opposite – pure evil, massacre, rape and torture. The magnitude of the disaster is astounding: the terrorists murdered 364 people, kidnapped 40, and left hundreds with physical and mental injuries.

These young people who came to enjoy a respite from the stresses of life fell from this wonderland into hell, existential anxiety, fear, terror and trauma. The project’s visual exploration centers on the sense of freedom and terror, the before and after, through new colors and compositions. As an artist, I share the trauma and try to examine the fears and traumas through images and colors. Each image seeks to understand the incomprehensible. Each brush stroke, color mix and application tries to connect to the anxiety and then, when the picture forms, to feel the pain and loss.