The Full details about the 2 exhibitions of Raphael Perez ( in hebrew Rafi Peretz) on Suzhou China
Israeli painter Raphael Perez held two exhibitions in the Chinese city of Suzhou.
The first exhibition is the 6th Biennale, which will be held for three months in April, May, June 2023.
Raphael (Rafael) Perez second solo exhibition in Suzhou Qu Art Museum is called "Intoxication of Color", which will be held in August, September and October 2023.
In his solo exhibition "Color Intoxication" the exhibition call also "colour Intoxication" Raphael (Rafael) Perez presents works on three themes, which are the core of his work:
- The first and main theme, and the one with which the painter most identifies. These are gigantic "naive paintings" measuring two and a half meters in size in cities across Israel and around the world. In preparation for the exhibition, Rafael Perez painted 4 naive city paintings of China, two of which are paintings of the city of Suzhou, the first of which is a classical garden and bonsai of trees in the city of Suzhou, with beautiful canals and all of the city Iconic buildings, the second painting of suzhou city is the central avenue of the city with towers and skyscrapers and all the famous and well-known buildings in the city, the third painting of the city in China is Shanghai city skyline and painting of all skyscrapers. The sky, old buildings, old city of Shanghai, traditional Chinese costumes, dragon boats, temples, etc. are all famous and well-known in Shanghai. The fourth picture of Chinese cities is the "World Park" of Shanghai. Beijing, in this beautiful park, presents the most famous buildings and sites in the world, which the painter Rafael Pérez paints in aqueducts and gardens...
The rest of the naive landscapes are the cities of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and London, including two cityscapes - a tribute to two old naive Israeli artists, Reuven Rubin and the painter Moses Kaster, who were mainly painted in the first half . 20th Century.
- The second type of "couples paintings" is a painting of a male and female couple embracing and loving, although the artist is gay, the paintings of male and female couples he painted in the past are full of complicated relationships without any connection and connection. There was no love, but over the years the painter found a relationship with a man named Asaf Henigsberger, they lived happily for 10 years, and he was surrounded by a lot of friendly women, with whom he did not Conflict, but see an acceptance and love for women through friendship with dear women.
- The works of the third series are "Artist Books" of different sizes, one is 100x140 cm, the other is 100x70 cm, and four small books, which he has from his youth to the present, and which he returns to These pages and works are clearly a never-ending work.
Perez began creating notebooks and diaries as a teenager, when he was arguing about his gay identity, and in which he wrote about his fears and concerns about coming out, and at some point the books and diaries were not the same. It couldn't be more important Rafael Perez uses couples, flowers, animals, and other graphic themes from the book to turn words into visuals. There are thousands of drawings and works on paper in these books, which is a Sisyphus-style craftsmanship. "The time I put into making each book is huge, and each book takes about hundreds of hours. There are many original drawings and works on paper." Drawings.
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INTERVIEW WITH THE ISRAELI NAIVE PAINTER RAPHAEL PEREZ ABOUT HIS SOLO EXHIBITIOIN COLOR INTOXICATION ON QU ART MUSEUM SUZHOU CHINA
question: As an Israeli artist, how does Israeli culture influence your art?
Answer: I was born in Jerusalem and lived there until my twenties - in the paintings of the city of Jerusalem, the capital city of Israel, there are motifs of religious Jews praying, synagogues, and paintings that depict "Jerusalem as the centre of the three religions" Judaism, Christianity and Islam, with the important religious sites for each religion - The Western Wall - for the Jews, the Church of the Sepulchre for the Christians, Al Aqsa Mosque for the Muslims, it is admittedly a conflicted city and full of conflicts, but in the paintings I try to bring a kind of optimistic view of the future of connection between Jews and Arabs.
I have lived in Tel Aviv since 1995 and the liberal, secular city is reflected through the paintings bathed in light and without clouds, Israel is a Mediterranean country with a stretch of coast that borders the desert and there are almost no clouds during the year so there is an expression of clean Israeli light, strong sun almost all year round, Tel Aviv It is a city only 114 years old, it was only founded in 1909, so most of the tall buildings depicted in it are skyscrapers from the last thirty years and the low buildings are from the 1920s to the 1950s, when there was construction in the German Bauhaus style, and Tel Aviv is defined by UNESCO as the "White City" where there are The largest concentration in the world of 4000 Bauhaus buildings, (Shanghai and China also have quite a few Bauhaus buildings) Tel Aviv also has the oriental style of architecture that also combines oriental motifs and arches that also exists in a small part of the iconic buildings in Tel Aviv when the architectural idea of this style was a combination of East and West Through the colourfulness of the urban landscape and the unique Israeli light, I want to bring something from the warm, optimistic Israeli temperament and character.
Israel is ranked 4-6 in the global happiness index, despite the complex security struggle that Israel has been in since its foundation, the Israeli public is warm, energetic, direct, a bit brash, and daring and this can also be seen in the vitality of raising children and a family - Israel is the country with the most children per family in the developed countries... (3.7 per family) and this has even increased in recent years... Israelis put the couple and the family at the centre, therefore there is a motif of couples and families with children, I want to express in this congestion the fact that Israel is a dense, intense, young country, a happy and vibrant start-up nation.
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question: Can you discuss your artistic process, from concept to creation? What are your inspirations?
Answer: I worked for 15 years with children and was influenced by their naive and spontaneous creativity.
In the working process of the naive urban paintings, I first do research on each and every city that I paint and discover the iconic low and tall buildings from old times to contemporary modern times, choose buildings with a special shape, or buildings that have meaning for the country and the city, rebuild the city with the painter in the centre who stands with a canvas and paints the urban landscape in front of him, usually there are two gardeners with girls holding the flag of the country I am painting, and couples of men and women kissing or families with children, I plan the cities with boulevards of flowers, low bushes, boulevards of trees, after them, I put low buildings and icons, behind them the tops of big trees and behind them towers and skyscrapers, in the sky in some of the paintings I put balloons, kites or if it's at night then stars, or fireworks and lanterns to emphasize the light and shadow... I use acrylic paints on canvas, there are also series of paintings with bright colours, and I like the use of contrasting colours, mainly red on top of the green lawns and the buildings in warm colours of red, orange, yellow, pink against the background of the green trees and the blue sky, very bright colours that bring in a lot of light, optimism, joy.
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question: What do you hope people take away from your art?
Answer: In the paintings of the urban landscape, I want everyone to see, identify, and connect with the history and experience of the physical place where they live, that they see the development of their country through the costumes, the ancient iconic buildings, with the contemporary skyscrapers.
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question: The works in this exhibition are on canvas, board, and paper, what materials do you prefer to work with and why?
Answer: I like to work with a variety of materials and techniques... and to express my various skills. The large naive paintings are only in acrylic colours on canvas, in the past I painted realistic paintings of couples and flowers, and they were in oil colours on canvas. There is a large series of artist's books where I work with acrylic paints, ink, markers, pencils, pens,
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question: Is there an artwork in this exhibition that you feel particularly connected to? Can you share the story behind it? Or is there a particular story you would like to share with the audience?
Answer: My favourite painting in the exhibition is the painting of the city of Suzhou with the water canals and the bonsai trees, in this painting and others I created about cities in China I did research work before, first on the traditional Chinese costumes, the traditional folk temples, Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian temples, Chinese means of transportation Antiquities such as carriages, rickshaws, ships decorated with dragons, ancient Chinese statues, trees that are characteristic of China such as the bonsai, I really liked the water canals that give a feeling of Venice of the Far East, with the special lanterns, the old city of Suzhou is like a beautiful and magical village inside A rich urban landscape, in the centre of the painting I put the famous temple of the city and behind you can see the business centre with the skyscrapers and the famous skyline of the city, I have a desire to combine old with new that brings the glorious tradition of the Chinese people with innovation, progress, and the skyscrapers that make the China to the most influential empire and country in the world ... in the coming decades ...
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question: Can you tell us about your initial thoughts and ideas for the creation of landscape series? Regarding the painting “Raphael Perez after Reuven Rubin”, could you please share your inspiration and the story behind the creation?
Answer: The painter Reuven Rubin, born in 1893, is one of the most famous painters in Israel, he belongs to a group of several artists called the "national Israeli artists" who painted the landscapes of Israel before its establishment in the twenties and thirties of the last century, paintings in a naive, romantic style, the reality was the opposite, these were days of difficulties Huge economic hardships, poverty, days before the establishment of the state, riots and violence by Arabs against Jews, and in Europe the extermination of a third of the Jewish people in the world, the murder of 6 million Jews, only a few of whom escaped and survived the inferno of the Holocaust.. The Jewish community in Israel was small and faced many challenges and had to transmit optimism to herself, to survive the difficult times, through painting the artists tried to paint an idealization and a shared life between Jews and Arabs, a conflict that exists to this day, and I also have a huge series of naive paintings that deal with the idealization of a shared life.
In the tribute painting to Reuven Rubin, on the right side, you see the Muslim community with traditional clothing, a shepherd, olive trees, Arab villages, and donkeys as their main means of transportation, on the left side of the painting you see the kibbutzniks, the beginning of modern, developed agriculture, belief in Hebrew work and the Jewish labourer who paved roads and build his country... I dedicated five paintings from the tribute series to the five national Israeli artists including Reuven Rubin, Nahum Gutman, Moshe Castel, Israel Peladi, and Yohanan Simon, these artists are the most precious in Israeli art because of the naive and optimistic vision they transmitted in their works, I dedicated a painting to each artist Only one in which I included between 30-50 of his famous works and of course built it with the optimistic colours and symmetrical compositions that are characteristic of me...
These painters are the source of inspiration and I feel obliged to continue their artistic path in the special language I developed...
