Israeli artist uses army uniform to expose trauma

When Uzi Amrani was a medic serving in Lebanon, he wasn’t thinking about art. He was trying to stay alive. “It took 10 years to understand what was going on with me,” he says quietly. “And it wasn’t like an injury in the body. You can’t see it.”

Diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 2007, a decade after his army service, Uzi’s life had already unravelled. He entered the battlefield aged 19. By his twenties, he was married with three children and terrified of the sound of traffic, of driving, of sudden noises.

His eventual diagnosis gave his pain a name and, although recovery is ongoing, Uzi is now an acclaimed multidisciplinary artist whose work
gives physical form to his trauma and healing.
His materials are not just fabric and thread, but memory itself, reassembled as a dress that looks like couture.

This is no surprise, as Uzi Amrani won Israel’s prestigious Ophir Award for his costume design on the first season of Shtisel and, having studied at a yeshiva in Mea Shearim, he was prepared.“ I knew exactly where to look for  inspiration to tailor the strictly-Orthodox wardrobe.” Uzi was unable to work on the second series because of his PTSD and chose to become a cleaner – “so I could be on my own”, he sighs.

But he made it back and, today, in his Tel Aviv studio, instead of dressing fictional characters, he undresses his past, piece by piece, through art. “War and the PTSD touched every aspect of my life. Of many lives in Israel,” he says. His sculptures are striking, even beautiful, but their power lies in the materials: repurposed uniforms of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

In 2017, he won a competition themed around Fashion and Psalms with The Transparent Soldier. “Following military service and the post-trauma, I designed a ‘new uniform’,” he explains. Made from sheer fabric, the uniform is printed with psalms he recited during IDF convoys in Lebanon. Chillingly, the words are also on army boots. “It illustrates the vulnerability of the soldier and the desire to be invisible in the face of fire.”

Uzi made a video of cinematic quality to showcase his soldier standing on a deserted beach before slipping out of the transparent uniform. In a scene reminiscent of David Bowie as the alien in Nic Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth, a young woman appears, dressed in the IDF uniform gown.

The constant appearance of the uniform in Uzi’s work is disarming. It appears as a tablecloth at a Shabbat dinner and the image is pointed. “I couldn’t sit at the table with my children,” he says. “The war was always there.” That’s why he intentionally upset his display. “It looked so different when I tore up the setting. When the chandelier was on the table. It looked like a home after October 7. People who saw it understood. I gave a voice to PTSD and, since October 7, PTSD is everywhere in Israel.”

He also used IDF uniform to make a football and a rocking horse – symbols of disrupted childhoods, altered because of the return of a father who is a soldier. But his art also offers moments of reprieve. His tallit covering a rocking chair or used as a hammock are serene. “They represent escape,” he says. “Sitting in the arms of God when you can pray.”

Uzi works long days, up to 12 hours, often in silence. “The art is the relief,” he acknowledges. And the response to his work makes that process worthwhile. At exhibitions, audiences don’t just look, they feel. “I’m happy my story touches people,” he says. “When people saw the disrupted Shabbat table, they cried. And they understood.”

Amrani doesn’t create to impress. He creates to survive and bear witness.

The featured image appears courtesy of SOS Israel support our soldiers org. Photographer Moses Pini Siluk imagines a wife awaiting the return of her husband, a reservist.

uziamrani.com