Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Portrait of a Painter - “Heimat”
“Heimat is a German concept. People are bound to their heimat by their birth and their childhood, their language, their earliest experiences or acquired affinity.” -- Liron Lipu
Liron Lupu’s vision of Israel and the settlements, Heimat, the title of his recent exhibit at the Kayma Gallery in Jaffa, is not for the faint of heart. I found his paintings, which I saw as part of a two person exhibition at the gallery, definitely unsettling. He uses a bold palette and almost cartoonish figures and landscapes o show a violent and threatening world of aggressive tractors, guns, and attack dogs. Even his religious women are threatening figures. He juxtaposes aggressive icons with fragile landscapes and figures. Liron Lupu lives and works in Tel Aviv; he graduated in 1996 from the Department of Fine Arts at the Bezalel Academy of art and design.
Curator Philippe Brandes writes about Liron Lipu’s exhibit Heimat at the Kayma Gallery:
"Israeli artist Liron Lupu presents a new chapter in his pop-Zionist saga, with a series of pseudo-realistic paintings epitomizing the history and geography of Israel and the territories beyond the green line. Pastoral scenes of everyday life in the fields with tractors, pets, goats and donkeys, colorful new “housing units” dominating with the hills with European style tile –roofs, groups of Palestinian refugees fleeing their village, romantic scenes of glowing sunsets or a loving couple under a tree, gangs of extremist settlers beating a peasant at twilight; the human and the spatial landscape of the West Bank becomes the subject of an in-depth research , the artist acting as a doctoral student collecting and analyzing disturbing facts and phenomena.
"Still, despite the highly political charge of the words , the attitude of the artist is not a political one- an attitude of direct denunciation or rebellion. Lupu’s art shows deep empathy for the country he lives in and the reality of the “occupation.” Rather than judging the figure of the national fanatic , he tries, through the patient and poetic work of his brush , to understand and penetrate his soul.”
"In other work Lupu has created a gallery of portraits inspired by political figures and public events that left their mark on collective and personal memory, such as Jabotinsky, Begin, and the Beitar football players.
"You can see more of his work here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lupu78/
"The Kayama Gallery, an arts organization is interesting for its is an independent, anti-conformist gallery for contemporary art. It welcomes formally educated, self-taught and outsider artists alike, whose singular creativity challenges rational understanding and preconceived ideas. Questioning the complex relationships between visual arts, literature and the urban, Kayma advocates imagination, passion, skill, tradition and innovation. The name of the Gallery is derived from the Aramaic/Hebrew Bar Kayma, which literally means "bearing life, existence, survival." It is located in the mixed Jewish-Arab urban district of Jaffa, at the heart of a country in permanent turmoil, Kayma Gallery portrays its philosophy by means of its logo: a calligraphic character connecting together Hebrew, Arabic and Latin alphabets into one symbol."
Kayma Gallery: http://www.kayma.net/art-gallery-telaviv/index.cfm