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.

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.

An Orchard Rising

From one show to another, I almost played three games at once (but two is more than enough).
Two months ago, two exhibitions opened in Haifa: my little solo show at Hapina Cafe, titled "The Gateway to Lower Paradise", and the grand-grand-over-anticipated-exciting-event-of-the-year "Bustan Khayat" (Khayat Orchard), in two parts - one  at Haifa City Museum,  and one that showed more of the arty stuff, at Bet Hagefen Gallery.

I didn't take any pictures from Hapina Cafe opening because I was too busy drowning in the sea of people that just kept on coming - but it was a very happy occasion. Literally the whole neighborhood swarmed in.
I managed to hang 30  works, most of them small marker drawings; I was really surprised when the Haifa Museum, in a Facebook post, recommended my exhibition, most of which was indeed about Khayat Orchard.

The opening at Bet Hagefen was something else entirely. 35 artists, a huge crowd numbering hundreds of people, according to some. Eyal Friedlander, a kind of host and one of the curators, was glowing all over. It was his big time. Hopefully something good may come out of all this. Eyal is a wonder, he started working there on his own and later with volunteers and still keeps the place together, deeply involved with it. If the city had any sense, he would have been commissioned there as warden/gardener. Here in a painting by Hila Sali.

The tigers were represented by some paintings and drawings, some shown in previous posts, and this oil 60x90 cm that was completed only two days before the curators came to my studio. It is part of the graffiti series.

My large wooden circle raised some attention, shown by most publications and TV shows who talked about us at all. Below, Pnina Beagetz, a painter friend,  and myself under the image. Photo taken by Efrat Peleg - another gifted artist.

Beautiful places are sometimes man-made and sometimes just places of great natural beauty. Because we lack breathtaking natural vistas within a walking distance, we settle for more humble places. Anyway one sees beauty not through the eyes of the flesh, but with the heart.

Under Glass

Recently I have been framing my own artwork, and following advice from someone I bought the wood from, I decided to cut my own glass - which would save me money in the long run. I had in mind about 40 small to medium frames.
Cutting glass works like magic once you get the right tools. It is incredibly easy and I have a small obsession with the whole issue now.
You probably haven't heard, :) but I sold a painting earlier this year in an exhibition in Gate 3 - this painting:

It's oil on acrylic glass 45x110 cm. I made 3 in the series, this is the second of 3 panorama paintings of my back yard.
This one is the first (and favorite).

Most people liked it because of the transparency, I am sure. A lot of people came to tell me they liked it; eventually when someone bought it I wasn't there, and they just called me from the gallery to let me know.
I too like transparent, and the new glass madness is overwhelming. First of all, the feeling of having conquered a certain fear; the sound of the cutter scratching; the fragile, subtle and yet cruel properties, the weight and feel of the material; and I can tell glass likes me, because I keep finding it everywhere now. Sometimes it is too thick to frame with and then I use it as paperweight, or to cut paper on. (This is my first cut glass - a crooked shot, but a straight piece)

Last week I took a break from framing and went to the Khayat Orchard to unwind and sketch a little. A friend who went with me made a wonderful watercolor I wish I had taken a photo of. And I made these three marker drawings.
 And then went home and framed them one by one.

 

After the curator for the Cafe Hapina exhibition picked the works, I felt free to resume my work in oil, which I have been neglecting for a while in favor of framing. Lately I have been experimenting a bit, taking for instance my marker drawings as basis for larger works in oil, sometimes using 3-4 drawings for one oil painting.
This is the first experiment, oil on wood 21x88 cm. I love these unusual proportions, just like the acrylic glass earlier. I just found the wood and it gave me an idea.

You'll get to see my frames when I report from the exhibition in a month or so.

What Does Your Garden Grow

Our Secret Garden is coming to the center of attention in September, when two exhibitions (at least) will open in the city - one in the Haifa City Museum and another one in Bet Hageffen Gallery, showing the work of volunteers in the Orchard, plus some artwork created through the decades.
And all the while mysterious things continue to happen around the Khayat place. Tigers have been spotted again, and graffiti of tigers appeared in the pools area. 

But since it was drawn with charcoal, it is already starting to fade. 

The tigers in this image came from this painting:

oil on plywood, 64x48 cm

I worked on it for almost a year, give or take, and with a few months break in the middle (visiting Europe and USA in 2015). But the best works are not the ones I work at the most. Sometimes it's just a small sketch in markers, and sometimes something different entirely, like this plywood round panel of  ⌀110 cm.

oil on plywood

In a Facebook post I named this painting "Off Fence". The fences are a new arrival. It used to be as it is, abandoned and beautiful in its neglect. But the city wanted to cover its a** and one morning there were those ugly green railings everywhere. I thought about making a comment, but in a very subtle way. I think the work does not appear to be political in any way. For this oil painting I used a sketch in markers:

As well as this one

And last, I tend to make more drawings of the same spot over and over again, and this is one of my favorites:

pen, 35x50 cm

So, another one.

markers,  21x28 cm

Backyard Garden

This painting done about two years ago made me think of water flooding the place, and then the desire arose in me to paint this image. Eventually I came up with only a hint of water - the painting below can be interpreted in many ways.

Wadi Siyah and the Khayat Orchard, at the foot of the Carmel, are some of my favorite spots in the city. Once a thriving beautiful  residence getaway for the wealthy Khayat family, it  passed hands until it became city property, but since then (the 70's) it has long been abandoned,  and the city does little to maintain this heritage site or make it accessible for the public (tax-paying, a-lot-of-tax paying public etc.).
The wadi or dry creek runs from the Carmeliya neighborhood on the Carmel range in Haifa, down to the cemetery. This drawing I made on a daytrip up the dry creek in summer. (In winter it can carry occasionally some actual rain water).

I made a few oil sketches there, but recently I take the markers or make a pen drawing.

After spending a few years painting and drawing in the Orchard, I started to see tigers in the deep shadow of shrubs and trees. The tigers are an ancient subject I dealt with some 5 years ago.

Some people live in the lower entrance to the wadi, across from the cemetery. There is a dispute going on with the municipality who wants them out. This is one of the houses, with a magnificent tree in front of it.

Some of the magic of the place is in its many staircases, leading from one level to another, sometimes made for leading the water down.