Lives and works in Munich.

1979 Born in Jerusalem, Israel
2007-2012 Diploma (Meister Schuler), Prof. Otto Kuenzli Class for Jewelry and objects, The Academy of Fine Arts Munich (DE)

Attai Chen was born in 1979 in Jerusalem, Israel. He creates contemporary art jewelry and wall sculptures. Chen’s work features powerful conceptual and aesthetic expression, on the one hand, and exquisite but innovative craft, on the other hand.
Both of Chen’s parents, Eva Chen- Tolkovsky and Shlomi Chen, graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art, Jerusalem. And his stepfather, with whom he had been living since the age of eight, is the prominent Israeli painter Zvi Tolkovsky. They influenced Chen to study art at a very young age.Chen passed his childhood and adolescence in Motza Illit, a picturesque village near Jerusalem in the Judah mountains bordering the Judah Desert. It is surrounded by Mediterranean forests of pine trees and orchards of olive trees… with a water reservoir nearby. Chen was exposed to the ecosystem- the process of Nature’s creation and life cycles. It fascinated him so much that he was to explore this subject in most of his artworks. He took agriculture lessons in the village schools, possibly through which he learned to value highly working in hands. Later, Chen joined a socialist commune in Hanita in the north of Israel as National Service for one year. He and the other members shared everything and worked in the banana field. Chen remembered it as the most beautiful period in his life.
Chen’s Academic art education began with a major in jewelry at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. His jewelry characterizes miniature sculpture, in metals initially and in wood and paper later. In recent years, this feature brought him naturally to create wall sculptures with the same materials.

By Noga Zhang Shahar