Spotlight Emerging Talent: Israeli Artist Sarah Angel
Let me tell you a story- When I was a young girl growing up in the suburb of Cote-St.-Luc, Montreal, Canada, my family davened at Beth Zion. If you've ever been there, you know that is truly a sight to behold! Its interiors are adorned with Judaic art of all different sizes and mediums- a ginormous multi-dimensional needlework tapestry adorned it main foyer, while its Aron Kodesh is a sever stories high kaleidoscopic masterpiece of flames creating the Ten Commandments. One wall has a stone 3-D sculptural depiction of the Holocaust and stained-glass windows depicting scenes of our Jewish heritage abound.
When I was growing up, I thought this was normal for a shul.
Honestly, I'd go to shul and while the adults prayed, I'd literally walk around the extensive shul premises and absorb the art and feel a thrill!
(A far cry from the sparse caravan shuls here in Bnei Brak, but alas!)
I'm quite sure that the inspiration I derived from the shul of my youth directly influenced my choice of career!
So, as part of my commitment to #MakeJudaismBeautifulAgain, I've decided to introduce you to well-known and lesser-known Israeli female artist in each of my upcoming newsletters, B"H.
Perhaps you'll be touched by her art in a way that'll make you want to see it in YOUR shul!
Meet Sarah Angel.
She does beautiful oil paintings in many sizes. (Around 50 cm to 1.5 meters).
Each of her paintings has a minimum of four layers, and takes Sarah about ten to fifteen hours to create.
She uses metallic colors, various powders, gold leaf, and other techniques in combination with additional splashes of surprising materials.
Says Sarah: "It is my soul food. When I paint I forget the whole world - I'm not hungry, not thirsty, and not tired"
During her high school years, she studied with an artist from South Africa named Beitia Gefen - all the theoretical knowledge of painting: light and shadow, objects, figures, perspective, color, pencils, watercolors, etc.
After that, she continued to look for more and went to professional enrichment courses with various world-class artists: Yossi Rosenstein, Ora Nissim and Etty Barclay.
She moved from teacher to teacher and slowly developed her own, personal, creative style. She realized, that her process isn't just copying everyone but rather, she draws from an internal process that arises:
“That is, when I approach to create, I really don't plan and don't know what is going to come out of me and I surprise myself every time..!”
Today she continues to create, and draw, and now she has made it her profession. Her paintings are made with an emphasis on combining textures and conveying a sensory message. It is important to her that everyone can connect to the paintings in their own way
and see things from his personal point of view.
You can call each painting by a different and diverse name, and look at it every time from a different angle!
So this is one of my favorite originals by Sarah: Spiritual Gate.
Oil on canvas 80 x 90 cm.
Here are some more beautiful original paintings by Sarah:
I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse of the amazing work of the talented Sarah Angel. And thank you for joining me on my journey, of my commitment to #MakeJudaismBeautifulAgain!