Artist’s Statement

In 1982, I was a young Israeli soldier fighting against terrorists in Lebanon. Needless to say, War has an affect on any human. During most furloughs, most of my friends would look for comfort in a bottle or a pipe. These methods did not work for me. A friend brought me a sketch book and a set of watercolors. It was there that I found I was able to release the beast that that resided within. It was finding a new language in which I was able to express myself. Color, form, lines replaced words that would not come out voluntarily.

Fast forward to 1985… After arriving in New York I decided to study Fine Art. I started studying at SVA, NYC focusing on painting, and continuing in Parsons School of Design under Simon Dinerstein. It was also during this time that I was taken as a private student by the Artist Marc Klionsky.

I work primarily in oils, acrylics and graphite. I have been called an impressionistic expressionist by those looking to put a label on my work. The topics vary with my main body of work being landscapes again using different techniques based on the muse or the feeling I experience at that time. Color and texture mean the world to me, as those are the words that I can use truthfully. In the early years of my art career, I was privileged to be able to sell my work via exhibitions and a growing private market. This enabled me to focus full time on my art work.

As can be noticed in the exhibition timeline above, I took a hiatus from the professional art world during the nineties, when I was asked to return to the world of Security, more specifically counter terror. As the situations I found myself in became overwhelming, I found that I could not paint anymore, the truths I was experiencing were too painful to express via the canvas.

It was only in 2019 that I returned to expressing myself via my Art. This time the topics diversified. I returned to painting landscapes, but now the works took a different turn as I also started conveying my experiences fighting terror, and various situationsh I still find myself in as I continue my work attempting to prevent terror. It has been said that I can’t be “coined” into any specific genre of artist, as I will use varied styles to express myself, be they impressionistic, expressionistic or abstract. 

The merging of Art and Security is a concept that many find difficult to comprehend. How is it possible to combine these two diametrically opposed, even contradictory realms?

Art is constantly striving to achieve and capture beauty, or to make a visual statement on a situation. Security attempts to provide safety from the dark, unknown threats that we fear and wish to avoid.

A Painter starts his process with an empty canvas, an idea, a concept. He takes in his surroundings, his ideas, the materials he must work with in order to produce the work. The idea, the vision must be composed, space must be defined in the dimension he chooses and then applied.

I use the same raw feeling when I assess the Security needs in order to prevent terror.

“Its all just a composition waiting to be played out”. I try to look for the positive and negative spaces of the situation, the light and the dark, the form or lack of, and the heated and chilled sides of the challenges set before me.

My spallet is always flexible and developing, adapting to the “canvas” I set before myself.

My “medium” is never set in stone, adjusting itself to his vision and needs to achieve his goal, be it the creation of a new painting or a solution to protect.