Elie Avrahami
By Dani Karavan
(From the book:"Elie Avrahami - Water Color on Paper", Edited by Gabi Benzano)
Elie was born on the mountains of king Koresh ofPersia, not far from the AraratMountains – the losthomeland of the Kurds. Elie was born in a place where the jews still speakAramaic. There, near Aram-Naharaim and Khurin, not far from the place Abrahamleft after hearing the voice of god telling him: "Leave your country, yourpeople and your father's household and go to the land I will show you" (GenesisXII: 1-3).
Elie's father left too taking his family with him.They left behind their home, their yard, the oven where they baked their bread,seven pomegranate trees and two large vines. The fabric shop of Elie's parents,Tzalacv Avrahami and Farkhonda Amini, was also left behind, with its coloredsilks, linens, cottons and wools, and with the carpets woven by his sisters.
The countryside and rivers slowly vanished. Soon Eliefound himself crammed with his entire family in an abandoned house between theorange grove of Nes Ziona and Rehovot. Elie began to wander along the red earthof the plains, between the orange groves and along new paths of the Hebrewlanguage; though Persian, Aramaic and Kurdish remaind firmly in his heart, andwith them, the melodies and the images.
Later he became an air-force mechanic, using hisscrewdriver to open, close and secure. Then one day he decided to study art.Why art? How did he make the journey from Persian Kurdistan through Rehovot andthe air-force to the studio of Margushinsky? A studio with no connections tothe Orient, to the miniatures or to Chinese silk, a studio that taught paintingpar excellence, from the Ecole de Paris, as European as European can be.
Then, with only a few Francs in his pocket("Leave your country…") he arrives in Paris– a marvelous story of a young man making his way into the very heart ofcontemporary art – into private collections and galleries in Paris,New-York and Washington.The doors of the Museums of Modern art, the MetropolitanMuseum and Britain's National Gallery open upand embrace his works into their collections.
The tools with which he opens those doors aretranslucent watercolors. Out of a small box of Winsor Newton watercolor cubes,using the finest brushes made of mongoose hair; he creates a wealth of shapes,like those seen under a microscope – organic shapes in motion. He launches hisshapes on the paper and engages in a dialog with it; absorbent paper,impermeable paper, smooth paper or rough paper. The paper accepts the colorsand absorbs the paints, color upon color, layer upon layer. Then another layer, of a different nature,harmonizing with those beneath it, creating a new shade, different, richer –like a choir creating an accord.
He continues towield his moistened brush, drawing it over the paper until he hesitates whetherhis journey has come to an end: should he add anything? Or shouldn't he? Maybe justanother touch here or there, just to reinforce and perfect the balance.
I recall how excited was the painter Leah Nikel whenshe visited Avrahami's studio in Paristogether with her husband, Sam Lehman, and saw his watercolor works. She wantedto study his technique – not that of the school of Zaritsky, Streichman orSteimatzky, upon which we, Israeli artists, were raised and which is so typicalof Israeli paintings; but rather a watercolor technique that opens up a newpossibility, a personal one – western and yet so Oriental. A unique synthesisof a meeting between cultures. This is equally true of the abstract miniatureshe created at a later stage, which are so small and concentrated – a variationof the cubes of Rabindranath Tagore which were exhibited in many museums andgalleries with great success.
Elie Avrahami is not resting on his laurels. He continuesto forge new paths with colored engravings, using unique techniques, which hehas been developing since the 70's, when he worked in a print studio next toMaria Luiza Guaita's Il Bisonte gallery in Florence, and later at Friedlander'sstudio in Paris. Since then he has produced hundreds of etching using bothDrypoint and Aquvatint techniques. Among them, a series by the name "Songsfor Junjun" accompanied by poems written by Yossi Banai, which wasrecently published in a special album, under the auspices of Rachel and DovGottesman and beautifully printed by the print studio at Kibbutz Kabri.
Avrahami continues to move on and is currentlydeveloping an entirely new technique that necessitates a new style, using coldwax diluted with crushed, powdered color. He travels on his canvases betweentrees, through groves and forests, allowing his vagabonds from the 80's or 90'sto peek out here and there, dressed in rags. Maybe they are a distant echo ofthe fabrics that were left behind in father Zalach's shop in Iran? Where areyou going Elie? And indeed he continues to travel, to move on, foreverexploring new paths.