In the abstract realm

OLGA LIVSHIN

Sidi Schaffer’s new exhibition, Out of the Silence, opened recently at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery and includes the artist’s abstracts of the last several years.

“I see inspiration all around me,” said Schaffer in an interview with the Independent. “I pay attention to small things: a tiny flower or a drop of water.”

Schaffer often walks around with a camera, photographing what catches her fancy: a street flutist, chairs on a beach, a statue in a park. Even years later, she will use such images in her compositions, playing with them, experimenting with different angles and different techniques. Sometimes one photograph inspires a series of paintings that have almost nothing in common – except that one image that sparked them all.

Schaffer didn’t start as an abstract artist. After surviving the Holocaust as a child, she finished high school in Romania and entered a fine art program at the University of Bucharest. There she received her foundation in classical art and started painting people and portraits.

Two years later, after her family emigrated to Israel, the artist’s perspective underwent its first transformation. To make ends meet, she took a job at a ceramic factory, but her artistic vision developed independently.

“I started painting landscapes and still life,” she said. “I tried to catch the essence, the light and beauty of my surroundings. Even my pallet changed.”

In Israel, she received her first bachelor’s degree in art education, and taught art in the Israeli school system for 14 years.

In 1975, her family moved again, this time to Canada. With a new country and a new language to learn, the going was tough, but her optimism and her sunny disposition opened the door for a new stage in her creative growth. Schaffer began leaning towards the abstract. “In abstract paintings, I paint what I feel at the moment. It’s my true love,” she said.

In Canada, she received her second bachelor’s degree, in printmaking and painting from the University of Alberta. Printmaking became Schaffer’s favorite technique. Collage and etching, lithographs and watercolor, tape and silkscreen – she uses all of these to express her vision.

Eager to widen her artistic horizons, she started taking commissions for murals in 1983. Over the next four years, she painted murals for several Edmonton public buildings, including the Jewish community centre, a day care, a hospital and a civic centre. And she continued teaching – Hebrew and art.

“I love teaching children,” Schaffer said. “They are so spontaneous, so emotionally truthful. They are not afraid in their art. I always know how they feel from the pieces they create. This one is happy. This one is sad. Teaching adults has its rewards, too. One of my adult students [had] never painted in color until she came to me.... Gradually, I taught her to use color. It’s such a joy!”

Schaffer also delights in Judaica. Aside from work with Jewish content, she also paints ketubot (marriage contracts). Her first was one for her son’s wedding 14 years ago.

But abstract compositions, prints and mixed media remain her chosen modes of exploration. “With abstracts, I challenge your imagination and my own,” she said.

The printmaking techniques she uses for her abstracts are varied and complex and the artist can only guess how the end result will look. “Sometimes, I pick up a paper from the press – and I surprise even myself. That’s the best feeling.”

The titular painting of the current exhibition, “Out of the Silence,” is a black-and-white abstract, a wave of energy where something powerful surges up out of the depths. “That energy came out of me,” the artist explained.

The visual eloquence of another painting, “Earth, Water, Fire,” balances on the edge between destruction and creation. Out of the chaos something is born, like a symphony out of a bunch of individual notes.

Transformation and the dynamics of growth serve as recurrent themes for many pieces in the exhibition; shapes flow and stylized figures converge in the geometry of creation, as Schaffer’s artistic rhythms rise to new heights.

Schaffer’s work is on exhibit until Jan. 9.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She’s available for contract work. Contact her at [email protected].

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