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master
MEIR SALOMON
Lives and works in Tel-Aviv, Israel and Amstelveen, Holland
SEARCH THE ARTIST ONLINE www.meir-salomon.ybay1.co.il
The artist Meir Salomon has been living and creating in the Netherlands for “combination between the static balance and the dynamic equilibrium”.
the past 35 years. Salomon studied art in the Rietveld Academie Amsterdam Mondrian’s quest for the formation of a pure reality resulted in his use of
and it seems that the Netherlands has a profound influence on his work – his basic geometrical forms and primary colors. Salomon creates the contrast
occupation with flowers, flowering and the reoccurring window motif. Yet, Mondrian called for, fields of color created by vertical and horizontal lines on
each and every one of his works has a powerful Jewish presence; Jewish the one hand, and a clear poetic painting with an inscriptive, and at times
motifs appear over and over again – the prayer book, the “Star of David”, even sentimental character, on the other hand. The correlation between the
varied ritual objects and biblical citations. It seems that Salomon’s entire geometrical abstract and the figurative is defined and clear. In the majority
work brings together both ends (east and west, modernism and tradition, of the paintings we find a division to three planes, separated by satin, like a
abstract and figurative, color and line). Following two years in Avni Institute modern version of a “triptych”, generally associated to ritual work of art. Is
Tel Aviv, Salomon left, as mentioned, in order to study at the Rietveld this an intimation of a new, different piety? These very same satin fabrics
Academie of Art in Amsterdam, where he studied in the painting and function as interveners, for it seems that Salomon does not wish to create
graphic art. The graphic aspect is extremely dominant in his works and it is an illusion of existence, but rather, on the contrary, he positions the colored
evident that he is highly sensitive to both color and line. Salomon is without interveners as theatre curtains, asking to remind us that what we see is a
a doubt, consciously or not, influenced by the Dutch De Stijl movement. mere illusion, a seeming reality and nothing more. It seems that in his unique
In nearly all of his works, there is a clear division of horizontal and vertical connections, Salomon deals with all the existential questions concerning us
lines; the same division which was highly emphasized by the members of all, wishing to take the viewer on a journey to the depths of his soul.
the De Stijl movement. For the members of this movement, the belief in The water and fire works, and especially the use of water and earth
this division originates in eastern mystique and western theosophy; the colors, are evidently associated to kabbalah. The manifold use of the circle
vertical lines are the active element and the horizontal ones, the passive shape, as much as the sensation that the works engage in construction
elements; as both are visual equivalents for the basic facts of life. The and destruction - and create something new out of the void - all these are
manifesto of the movement’s leading figure, Piet Mondrian, called for a associated with obvious existential issues.
COmPOsItION 138, 1998 OIL ON CANvAS 27½x54½ IN. / 70x138 CM.
rODODeNDrON, 1994 OIL ON CANvAS 40x60IN. / 100x150 CM. WINDmOLeN, 2006 wATER AND FIRE ON PAPER 16½x12 IN. / 42x30 CM.
aNGeL, 2005 OIL ON CANvAS 31½x45 IN. / 80x114
sea-saND, 2006 wATER AND FIRE ON PAPER 16½x12 IN. / 42x30 CM.
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masters of today