Let's Go for a Drive

 

Pencil on paper 35x93 cm

Almost a year since my last post. Soon I am going to see New York and my friends there once again, and apart from that was busy as hell in the studio producing tons of drawings. There was a small exhibition in a charming little venue in town (Haifa) called HQRN Art Cluster.  It's run by Guy Karlinsky, a writer/poet who  curated his first exhibition here, everything from choosing the theme out of the multi-chaotic oeuvre of the artist, :) to hanging the exhibition according to his taste and writing the text about it.
The show was about paintings or drawings of scenes from a car in motion. It went fine, and while preparing my other artwork for it I was inspired to do even more art - like this top drawing that I chose to be the centerpiece, definitely the largest work in the collection. 

So this is a decent selection of works about driving around. Since then, it was in late spring, I started working in oil again and probably my next post (soon) will have to do with that. Looking forward to the next NY trip and wondering what this time will bring. 

It's in the Cards

A few days ago, "Radar Art Event" was celebrated in Haifa - Hadar quarter and vicinity. It comprised mainly open studios, some art venues and museums and small exhibitions here and there.
I opened my studio as usual, and put a pile of postcard-size watercolors on a table.

I started making postcards for the Fresh Paint art fair that takes place here once a year. You give the postcards and in return get one ticket to visit the art fair. 
I haven't been to Fresh Paint for two years, thanks to Covid and its various restrictions. But I continue to make postcards or small-size watercolors all the time in my studio. It may be a study for larger work, and sometimes I really do get bigger oils or watercolors done after the sketch. But they have a right to exist and shine on their own right. 

I usually like to draw the view from the passenger's seat while on the road to somewhere. Cars are a favorite subject, or just road trips. As are train stations, subways, traffic and crowds. 

The City Lives in a Dream

 

On the Road



Capital Wrecking on Crosby

It's been a strange year no doubt. As we are beginning to wake up, here at the eastern end of the Med, and look around us - Europe is still struggling to keep head above water, The US has reason to be a little more confident and I am not planning any more travel for the time being. 
But New York keeps calling me. First there are dreams, every now and then, of suddenly being in New York and then having to take care of paperwork and flights and insurance and where to stay - some upside-down schedule  - and even letting people know I am already there, which they did not expect at all. Funny. Then I started a series of watercolors and drawings based on New York and America at large - scenes from my visits there and beyond. 
And THEN -  I had been contacted by the New York Times Jerusalem office.  No kidding, true story. 
Patrick Kingsley, a very talented journalist, head of the Jerusalem bureau, decided he needed to have a chat with me, of all people in Haifa City,  to hear my take on the issue of --- wild pigs. Yes, Wild boar has been spotted closer and closer to where I live. They walk the streets looking for food and the whole tribe follows - 8 or 12 young, very cute striped hogs. Read all about it. 
(I actually once made some drawings, but that's not why he wanted to talk to me. It's the tigers of 2010 that caught his attention). 

So pigs

So back to New York watercolors and color drawings.

Two images around Times Sq

I then went into a very intense period of just pencil drawings and produced quite a bit of those, and this is just a sample, all USA or NYC-related:

Inside the Ai Weiwei Installation Central Park South 2017

Jerome Avenue bus station 

The Village

This last one is a pen drawing. I am alternately back to that as well. 

Park in Yonkers

Hey, New York. I will see you again. In your dream or mine. 

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.