“Olive Trees” by Ilan Baruch. Baruch paints in oil colors, in a figurative realistic style. He is well-known for landscapes, the views of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. His paintings are pastoral, but some of them involve an element of tension, as they are dedicated to settlements. They express a complex reference to Israeli reality. On the painting in the shade we see the person with a gun spying upon the shepherd. Baruch was born in 1974 in an ultra-orthodox family in Jerusalem. His father, who loved art and classical music, encouraged Baruch as a child to paint. In 2004 the artist displayed “The Cactus:Introspections” series at the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Baruch's works have been shown at many individual and group exhibitions.