Beverly Barkat

"One of the things that irritates me the most is that my occupation will be considered 'the hobby of the mayor's wife."

"My development as an artist in Israel and abroad has nothing to do with my husband, not with the people around him, not with opening doors. I don't use his connections to achieve anything or for someone to make my life easier. It's an iron rule for me, black and white, no gray."

"If someone pushes me into a place that isn't right for me, like labeling me and asking me what genre I'm painting in, I'll also get angry and say, 'What are you trying to put me in a box? I'm not willing to be there.'"

"When I draw on one side of the slide, I have to plan in my head what the other side will look like. It's not easy."

"I want to create a real dialogue between the old and the new, between the architecture and my paintings. My works respond to the strong presence of painting in the palace, and especially to one of its treasures – a nude fresco created by Giorgione. For years I worked in the studio observing the naked body, striving to understand the movement of the line in depth. In Palazzo Grimanni, in every corner you encounter line and color, architecture and painting that connect to each other and complement each other."

"When I paint, I explore the interior and the exterior at the same time: I go outside, look at the colors, the nature, the world. And then I synthesize what I see into the face, into the personal, into the deep. If what I do doesn't excite me and I don't touch places of pain, pleasure and emotion, that's problematic. As soon as the mind enters the process, I stop everything and put it aside. It's clear to me that I'm working on the very honest places myself, and someone from the outside sees it and feels it."

"Beverly is really a good artist – the real thing. She has a natural hand and her own artistic language, and we will hear about her not only as the mayor's wife."

"Let no one make the mistake of thinking that Bibi is some millionaire woman who was looking for a new hobby, she is an artist at heart. She is a very, very serious and very, very good painter - one of the most dedicated students I have had. She draws fantasticly, which is a great compliment – not everyone who paints also knows how to draw."