• Okun's academic approach is time-consuming on any scale, yet no matter how refined his technique and how long his process, there is something eternally raw about his subjects. The careful painterly attention he pays to each physiological detail brings his grotesque images to discomforting life. One is caught between a fantasy and reality that are both fragile and overpowering, unbelievable and all too familiar. "We're living in a transitional crisis on the order of the transition from the Roman Empire to the Middle Ages," says Okun. "Our time declares individualism to be one of its main values, but for some reason this 'individualism' all points in a single direction." Okun likes his spot on the fence. He was born in Russia, but has spent half of his life in Israel. He speaks Hebrew well, but cannot consider it his mother tongue. What he paints could only be painted here, yet he considers his cultural motherland to be Italy. "I've said it elsewhere," he explains. "I was born in the 20th century and live in the 21st. But I'll die in the 16th." He doesn't even try to follow the trends. "You can lie to others, but it's better to tell yourself the truth." He does what he wants, and it's enough for him that there are some people interested in this. There are projects he'd like to undertake - like a large-scale fresco - but "it requires a large budget, and it's no longer possible to have slaves." "I may not be able to do everything I want," he says, "but I'll die knowing I've lived my own life."
  David Stromberg, Jerusalem Post from December 5,2008
  

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