City Breaks and Forest Dreams

oil on canvas 40x50 cm

Dorit Barak invited me to take part in this year's Open Studios. She has a big studio in South Tel Aviv, in a building shared by many other artists. It allowed me to stay a few days in the big city, and made me feel like I needed more of that, because Haifa is so, well... quiet.
Not that we don't have our own city life. But it's very modest and you always meet the same people. Tel Aviv has this pulse, rush and multiple opportunities. I chose to live in Haifa though, and judging by the creative surge I had in the past few years, my choice seems justified.
But since Dorit invited me to show in Tel Aviv, I just sat at the desk, so to speak, and began to work, producing a whole body of work in just 5 months.
Here are some examples of the stuff I've been producing.

oil on canvas 48x52 cm

 engraving and oil paint on opaque (white) plexiglass, 65x64

oil on canvas 106x44 cm

This last one is an experiment in painting from imagination. I started with my back yard - the first painting in this post - and then inserted the forest in the space stretched between the buildings. 

So the back yard becomes CityForest... and maybe when CityForest project is ready, my back yard will indeed be part of it.

Forest Life

170x80 cm, oil on canvas, 2013

It's been a while. I have been busy moving from one rented apartment to another, trying hard to keep up the good work. The first move was to an apartment you wouldn't believe existed within my financial limits. It was a dream home, but as in dreams, it could not stay mine for long.
But the good news is, the Tigers project has given me a nice push to continue working as it was received so nicely. One of the Tigers is now decorating an office of a big company, another has landed in a private home.
Apart from drawing and painting like crazy all that which surrounds me - the view from the balcony is an old and somewhat romantic ruin - I have started working on the next thing. The forest above, a gift for my brother, is part of the new project. I have been dilligently procrastinating, if you can say such a thing. Sketches fill the room till there's no air but still no end, nor beginning (of the actual painting) in sight.
Forest has taken over my life. I seem to be thinking of nothing else, even contemplating moving to Europe for a while just to live in a forest and paint it until I'm satisfied. It could be West Europe (France is my favorite) or East (Georgia) or something in-between, like Slovenia, which I believe is covered up to its nostrils with moss. I just need to avoid bears, and then the forest will just fall into my arms and surrender, I suppose. Or I should just rely on the few sketches (in oil) I made here, in the humble strips of green we mistakenly label "forest" and use my imagination instead, - anything goes.