RUTH GROSSMAN

PROPHECY IN COLOR

Ruth Grossman

On January 25 at 7.00 PM in the Jerusalem Cultural Center (27 Hillel Str.) Ruth Grossman’s exhibition of paintings and graphic works “Landscapes of the Land of Israel” will be inaugurated.

The exposition includes about 40 works implemented in various techniques. These are landscapes in oil and watercolors, coal and pencil paintings, works of mood, bright, transparent and selfless, conveying an infinite love to the nature of the Land of Israel constituting the Genesis of any essence in the Universe.

The poetess Rachel depicted the light blue spring daybreak rising above the water, the green herbal prophecy and the purple cyclamen on grey cliffs leaving a pink shade:

מַשְׁחִירָה אֲדָמָה נֶחֱרֶשֶׁת,

פְּנֵי הַמַיִם – תְּכֵלֶת וָאוֹר,

מוֹרִיקָה בְּשׂוֹרַת הַדֶּשֶׁא

בְּחַגְוֵי הַגְּבָעוֹת, בְּמִסְתּוֹר,

וְרַקֶּפֶת צְנוּעָה מְבַקֶּשֶׁת

לְהַוְרִיד עַל סֶלַע אָפֹר.

 It seems that this poetic revelation has something in common with perception of nature by the modern Israeli artist who grew up in this culture and absorbed it.

Ruth Grossman was born in Jerusalem in 1967, graduated from the Jerusalem “Emuna” college where she studied fine arts. She also studied under supervision of Michael Kovner, the son of the prominent Israeli poet Abba Kovner, whose catalogues are preserved in the Giv’at-Ram library of the Hebrew University. Besides, she took lessons of Meir Appelfeld and Chaim Kapchitz, the author of monumental mural designs and mosaic decorative panels in Jerusalem and in Hadera, numerous stained-glass windows in synagogues throughout Israel. Chaim Kapchitz was honored with the gold medal at the Osoko international exhibition “EXPO-90” in Japan for his mosaic “Park in Israel”, and with the gold medal in the Chinese city King-Min for a series of nine mosaics. He was also one of the founders of Sa-Noor artists’ village, which will not inspire the artist any more as an object of Israeli landscape.

Studies with such prominent teachers and mentors undoubtedly exerted their impact on formation of the artistic vision apprehended by Ruth Grossman. That is how Chaim Kapchitz expresses his opinion about his apprentice: “Ruth Grossman has certainly received a profound education in fine arts, which is important in our days. She is interesting not only in figurative, but also in abstract painting. She exposes an understanding in the theory of autonomous form and autonomous space, a profound familiarity with the system of color compositions”.

Hence the visual apprehension of the landscape, which always seems to be both hers and yours. Why so? Isn’t it for her peculiar approach to color and composition? Her landscapes have an individual touch, and they are far from conveying trite figurative static nature as generally accepted in this genre. She is original, and she solves her creative tasks without overdoing.

Everything created by Ruth Grossman attracts for aesthetic spontaneity of her creation, in which a sense of life as soul revitalization is always apprehended. The artist manages to convey this sense by accepting everything in the nature.

That is why everything captured by her eyes perceives a personal, quivering, amorous resonance. A resonance abiding in the tree roughness, in the foliage threads, in the dewed grass, and in the clouds doomed to float in the sky and to carry the prophecy in color.

The exposition will last till February 12 and will be open to the public daily between 12.30 and 18.30.

Galina Podolsky, Ph.D.,

Art critic, writer