Canadian Artists Explore Healing After October 7 in Tel Aviv Exhibition

In the heart of Tel Aviv, a new art exhibition is offering a deeply personal and profoundly moving perspective on the aftermath of October 7. Titled “Day After Yesterday”, the exhibit features works by three Canadian artists and opened recently at the Canadian Embassy in Tel Aviv.

The exhibition is the sixth curated by Fiammetta Martegani since Hamas’s devastating attacks in southern Israel, and it continues her mission to process national trauma through artistic expression. With support from Canadian Ambassador Leslie Scanlon, who attended the opening event on September 19, the showcase invites visitors to witness healing through creativity.

Artists Marla Buck, Paul Curran, and Dorothy Zafir each use different mediums to explore themes of recovery, courage, and collective strength. Together, they offer a poignant tapestry of human emotion confronting darkness while illuminating the path toward hope and renewal.

Marla Buck, a Toronto-based jewelry designer and passionate Zionist activist, channels her energy into supporting PTSD recovery efforts and fundraising for families of hostages. Known globally for her 24-karat gold and porcelain pieces, Buck’s work in this exhibition mirrors Israel’s post-war journey. One central piece represents the State of Israel as a woman’s body, divided into three panels: white for hope, black for horror, and gray for trauma interwoven with recovery. Suspended across the panels are 251 small white figures, symbolizing the hostages each tethered by unseen threads that hint at unity, memory, and longing.

Paul Curran, a Vancouver native who now lives in Tel Aviv, brings a modern, digital twist to the narrative. Known as the “Drawing Tel Aviv” artist, Curran uses pixel art to reflect urban life and its contrasts. His featured piece, The Circle of Life in Tel Aviv, encases the city skyline within a clock visually charting the passage of time in a wounded yet beating city. Yellow ribbons scattered throughout his work stand as bright beacons of solidarity with hostages still held in Gaza.

Dorothy Zafir, who made aliyah from Toronto in 2015, brings a deeply emotional lens to the show. After losing both parents in 2022, Zafir found healing in Tel Aviv’s energetic art scene. Her work captures the hidden strength and enduring love found in the city’s overlooked corners from graffiti walls to whispers of political expression. Post-October 7, her exploration of urban textures took on a new depth. “Love is eternal,” she says, and her artwork echoes that message in every brushstroke.

Through sorrow, these artists uncover a visual language for resilience without words. Their work underscores that art is not an escape from pain but a path through it. “Day After Yesterday” is more than an exhibition it is a canvas of solidarity between Canada and Israel, and a living testament to the unbreakable spirit of a people who transform grief into beauty.

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