Leviim Jewish Art Gallery Presents Eden Chouraki

“In the center of my paintings, without reserve or effort, you will read a prayer, a symbol, a letter or a shadow that my knife has worked hard to shape hoping to trigger in you, a pleasant sensation of the adequacy between the subject and the painted gesture.

As for my oils, I am fusing them with the water of the Sea of Salt, the earth or the sand of Israel because, between the wild unconscious and the domesticated consciousness, I place incontestably my creed which is the hypertrophied motor of my artistic expression. Between the visible and the unsaid, it goes without saying, I invite you to pray.”

If you have been to a gallery in Israeli, you will probably recognize that this the work of Menashe Kadishman.

Menashe Kadishman was born in 1932 and passed away in May, 2015.

From 1947 to 1950 he studied under the Israeli sculptor Moshe Sternschuss at the Avni Institute in Tel Aviv, and in 1954 with Rudi Lehmann in Jerusalem. In 1959 he moved to London where he attended Central Saint Martin`s College of Art and Design and the Slade School of Art. He remained in London until 1972. In 1965 he had his first solo exhibition, at the Grosvenor Gallery, which was followed by many exhibitions and commissions by public institutions worldwide.

He represented Israel at the Venice Biennale in 1978 when he created for the Israeli pavilion a herd of blue metal sheep. In his youth, between 1950 and 1953, Kadishman worked as a shepherd on a Kibbutz. This experience with nature, sheep and shepherding had a significant impact on his later artistic work and career. In 1980, he began to paint sheep portraits each one is different from the other. These instantly-recognizable sheep portraits soon became his artistic trademark.

ReplyForward

Leviticus by Leviim Jewish Art Gallery

“I started painting portraits in 1998 in the University of Nebraska art program. Friends started commissioning me to paint family portraits, horses, cars, images they dreamed about and wanted them to come alive on canvas. I moved to NYC in 2000 where my real journey began. I joined the outdoor vendor community immediately wanting the access to the masses on the street. I sold a lot of art that way but found street life destructive to art. After years of experimenting, perfecting my craft, starting various businesses unrelated to art, I realized that it was all a distraction and no business other than art was worth my time. ” At Leviim Gallery, we are happy that Leviticus focuses on Jewish Art. His Jerusalem landscapes truly stand out.