Two artists view Jerusalem

PAT JOHNSON REPORTER

I used to live in Jerusalem. Now Jerusalem lives in me," says Rina Lederer-Vizer in the artist's statement accompanying her work currently on display at the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery. The joint exhibit, with fellow Vancouver artist Scott Plear, takes two distinctly different approaches in depicting the eternal city.

Lederer-Vizer's work of the city and its environs are duochromal. She uses the ancient media of tar, but foils it with modern techniques like the addition of Plexiglas. For example, she has tarred and oil-painted a scene of rolling hills and the city on board, then superimposed over it a painted Plexiglas foreground for added depth and texture.

Similarly, in the work titled "Palm to Palm in Jerusalem" (the title might imply two happy lovers), she depicts a mirror image of a palm tree, again with the Plexiglas for added drama.

The split screens of Lederer-Vizer's work may reflect the artist's struggle to assimilate the opposing facets of the city.

"I wanted to explore the polarity," she said.

Lederer-Vizer was born in Israel, three days after her mother, a Holocaust survivor, arrived in the state. She moved to Canada in 1975, but said she remains a sabra - prickly on the outside, sweet on the inside. Her art shows Jerusalem in a light of affection and love, but the stark contrast in shading gives it a somewhat sombre appearance.

The opposite is true for Plear's work. His paintings are watercolors, depicting Jerusalem in bright, glorious hues. The apparent optimism and cheer may come from the fact that the art emerged from Plear's first trip to Jerusalem in 1999, a time that contained more hope than today.

"It seemed that maybe things were going to come together," he said of the Middle East situation. "I certainly felt that then."

His artwork includes several perspectives on the Kotel, as well as different vantages of the same panoramas. His paintings show two extremes of Jerusalem: the open spaces of the city's surroundings and the cloistered
feel of many of the small alleys and walkways.

The first pieces in the exhibit, titled Archway, Jerusalem, Minaret, Jerusalem and Jerusalem Street, are each vertical images, with walls on both sides, giving, if not a claustrophobic feel, at least a sense of enclosure. Plear said the sensation is coincidental. The paintings were not done in the sequence in which they are hung and he did not set out to depict the city as a honeycomb.

"That's the way it looks," he said of the Old City.

Though he acknowledged that the paintings have a vibrancy that implies optimism, he said he would probably paint them the same way if he returned to Jerusalem in these troubled times. He responded to the place and the light, he said, things which persevere despite political upheavals.

"War and peace will come and go," said Plear. "But Jerusalem remains."

The exhibit ends Feb. 19.

^TOP