Oil and Water

Yes yes, do you hear the music playing?






pictures from opening night, and just an ordinary day at Hapina with my paintings all around

Better late than never - you are cordially invited to my new exhibition at the Corner Cafe (Hapina).  It will be on for another two weeks and change. Oil and Water just means the medium, in the most literal sense. No drawings, no markers.
It's already the second time I exhibit there, and I take it ever so lightly as I should a show in a cafe.
I had my share of gallery and museum shows in the past year, and why not go back to the one and only gallery in Haifa (well, sort of), now that they closed Gate 3 for good - oh, so sad.
Cafe Hapina, old faithful, still has Yair host the Tuesday night jazz event as well as a new initiative by Omer Ben David - also a jazz musician - called Jam Night. It is usually every other Thursday, people gather from all around and you never know what's going to happen, though after a while I noticed they too have an inclination towards well-known (yet well played) standards.
Jam night is using my drawings for the FB event cover photo. I must have become nearly official in sketching regularly at jazz nights - and other times - in this cafe.

So now I am making an oil painting using these last few sketches I made. The music it sweet in my veins and lifts me up and definitely contributes to the success of a sketch. I hope the painting is as good as some of these.

Some Light on the Matter

Oil on canvas,  55x70 cm, 2017

A few weeks ago I changed all the lights in my (rented) apartment. It used to be an office (lawyers), and then I moved in and the office moved out, but not entirely: there was an office ceiling with neon lights and not-so-pretty panels. On top of it, those neon lights strated to flicker and I had to remove most of them. There was simply not enough light.
Until recently, that is.
This is then and now:

As you can see, this is enough to work with. Enough of waking up in the morning and finding out that I did something terrible with the colors last night. ---

Crane, oil and scratching on panel, 38 cm, 2018

The light playing its special effects in the world around me usually stops me in my tracks. A dark corridor permeated by soft afternoon light can bring me to tears, as was the case with the abandoned villa in Italy in the image on top of the post. I found out that the way I treat light in my painting is typical,  full of feeling and awe.

In the work right above, I used the effect of light of the full moon with cloudy skies to enhance a dramatic feeling.

Forest, oil on canvas,  81x170 cm, 2013

Nature creates a rich light performance with foliage. Below some other examples.

Khayat Orchard, oil on canvas, 25x25 cm, 2016

Yard in Pennsylvania, markers on paper, 17x25 cm, 2017

Here, I used negative forms and turned the darkness into light by painfully scratching away paint.

Horsemen of the Apocalypse, oil and scratching on plywood, 53x73 cm, 2018

Khayat Orchard and Cat of the Imagination, oil and scratching on panel, 37 cm, 2018

Artificial light makes weird colors at night.

The Gate, oil on canvas, 50x70 cm, 2017

Interiors have a softened quality, indirect light usually coming from the side. It's very sunny outside.

Eyal, watercolor, 28x20 cm,  2018

I started painting this crane in bright daylight and somehow these negative forms emerged. 

Crane, watercolor, 27x16 cm, 2018

Drenched in blinding mediterranean summer sun:

On the Balcony, markers on paper, 28x22 cm, 2018

Jazz at the Corner

Fall colors on the balcony
markers

What do you know, summer is so much history by now, I'm all wrapped up and ready for the strange cold winter. Because it's not really winter, we forget how cold it can actually be.

In February I will have an exhibition in a gallery, and I still don't know what works will be shown. the idea is probably just to present myself to the public rather than choosing a theme, which is alright by me.

Khayat Orchard, oil on wood


Khayat Orchard, oil on wood

A lot of ideas are zooming in my head and not enough time and energy to perform. But I do manage to do some work. Recently I got into the habit of drawing the musicians in Cafe Hapina ("Corner Cafe") - where I had my "Khayat Orchard" solo exhibition two years ago.  They have jazz every Tuesday. The regular show belongs to Yair Loewenson, who hosts different musicians every week. 

The rest is silence. I have one or two surprises up my sleeve. Just wait a while longer.

No Fool on The Hill

New watercolor,  a back yard that no longer exists 32x51

The world is busy with its foolish business, but since my return from New York, six months ago, I no longer turn on the radio or read the papers. This leaves me with a great many gaps in my knowledge and a whole new world of firsthand experiences, untainted by the rage and regrets of the bigger scene.
I am watching winter turn into spring  in my homeland doing my own. For days I am indoors and suddenly the urge or necessity overcome me and I am amazed to see yet another season in the flow. I was preparing, sketching and so on with one major project, then a few smaller works, but in winter I tend to hibernate more - days are short - so I didn't really get much work done.

Three versions (markers, markes, & below - oil 60x40 cm) for "The Fool on the Hill"

Some New York scenes in watercolor or markers - all done after I returned home:

Some Tel Aviv (marker) scenes:

This fascinates me recently, what you can do with a sharp tool scratching oil-painted surface. The round panels I found on the street, where I always find things, pick them up and then spend years wondering why the house is crammed with things until - suddenly - the idea comes from nowhere. There is a time (and place) for everything. It is a small series of engraving on painted panel, all between 38-40 ⌀. Two of them below.

Time of the Season

Budapest - Asian restaurant

Summer lingered on hot and humid and I was still in Israel. After my previous last-minute trip to New York, I thought I will be traveling again this summer, but there were various setbacks, and on top of this it was the most horrid summer in history, I shit you not. 

Budapest

But at the end of August I did hit the road. And what a glorious road this time, stretching between three continents and checking out many new destinations, starting in East Europe - Hungary and Serbia - and ending in the fantastic Grand Canyon and a village in Pennsylvania.
I took gear for all seasons almost. In Europe summer was still on when I left late mid-Sept, and here in New York (where I am writing this) winter sends a cold and wet hello every now and then. It is time to go back, soon in a few days, to one of the world's most weather-friendly places (though its people are used  to complain about the climate, let me assure you, they have nothing to complain about).
In Budapest I have been visiting my good friend the artist Josef Ralt, a remarkably skillful painter who likes to sit at cafe's and draw the people with his pen and watercolor. He left Israel recently to move there and has already formed a new circle of friends, similar to the one he had in Tel Aviv.

Belgrade



No need to explain

I went to Pennsylvania following an invitation of yet another artist friend, Shirley Kanyon, whose words (here in her Hebrew blog) are almost as enchanting as her lyrical images. I stayed for a week after a week of Grand Canyon solo adventure, and it was quite different there in a countryside village. I felt like in an art residency, having deep discussions with Shirley about art, painting, structure and subject matter. I exerted myself and tried to learn new methods of adding line and color to form. 

Home at Shirley's


Botanical garden



And this is New York.

A man I met in the park wanted his portrait in markers, and then his daughter's, from a photo. It was a great experience to actually talk to someone who was really interested in what I was doing. Real contact is rare. This is a call to my fellow brethren to please make conversation with an artist at work, as long as the work seems finished enough you wouldn't be intruding. We love your comments when they are genuine and coming from the heart. Artmaking is a solitary business, done in private and not performed before a crowd; and we may miss that human connection sometimes. 

As the leaves are falling, done by now with their spectacular multimedia show, so shall I wrap myself to be back to my old hometown and see what's new. I know I have been missing a few.