UNTARBUTLESS Art group

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Une oeuvre certainement inspirée de celle de C.S Lewis dans la mesure où la tonalité générale exerce une fascinante ressemblance avec l'humour et la fantaisie d'Alice au pays des merveilles. En effet l'artiste semble utiliser un langage particulier propice a matérialiser une certaine crainte de ce que l'on peut voir. L'oeuvre ici présente s'agence de manière à suggérer l'étonnement et le questionnement. La mise en place du personnage et des décors dans lesquels il évolue instille des allégories savamment orchestrées. L'alchimie devient redoutable lorsque notre esprit devine les mécanismes de construction comme la référence à certains mythes ou la juxtapositions d'objets symboliques enrichissant une relation complexe du personnage et de son environnement. La licorne, la sirène ou le lion tissent une vision métaphorique de la vie au travers de leurs expression symbolique. Ils s'incarnent dans l'expression de la terre pour le lion, de l'eau pour la sirène et la pureté céleste et terrestre pour la licorne. L'artiste utilise donc les éléments qui nous relient à l'univers et synthétise ce sens dans l'oeuvre "Imagined Ocean". Les trois éléments sont donc liés et le personnage semble voguer entre les trois en maintenant l'équilibre. Irena Aizen ajuste sa création en parsemant des évocations d'ordre poétique comme la lune, les anges ou encore la chouette. Unifiant ainsi l'ordre spirituel ou invisible à l'ordre naturel, l'influence des forces cachées sur l'univers permet d'identifier une construction savante d'une oeuvre riche et intense. Le tout s'unit parfaitement autour d'un personnage central, à la fois humain et animal, revêtant la morphologie du lapin comme pour s'identifier à l'innocence ou à l'enfance, et suggérant par son regard grand ouvert sa vision du monde. Cherchant un équilibre dans ce qui l'entoure, entre l'ordre et le chaos, très visible dans "Children's Games", le personnage cherche à comprendre le monde et son fonctionnement. Une dualité nécessaire et vérifiable dans "Dancing Twins" qui implique l'artiste dans une composante littéraire qui va définir toute son oeuvre. Le choix peut paraître difficile pour l'homme, son comportement et ses décisions vont l'entraîner vers le bien ou le mal définissant ainsi sa propre existence souvent sinueuse. Les oeuvres "Seasons-Summer" et "Children's Games 2" démontrent le caractère flou de ce qui nous entoure, de la difficultés des prises de positions et de l'influence souvent terrifiante du monde. Irena Aizen est une artiste consciente des réalités et exerce son art avec une pincée d'onirisme et de surréalisme en déployant avec raffinement un talent certain qui procure à l'oeil du spectateur averti une raison solide de continuer à aimer l'art.
Antoine CARLIER MONTANARI, France

Ohad Milner was born in Israel in 1978.
Ohad creates unique woodwork using a great variety of exotic woods.
His work is very original and multiple kinds of style.
The special skill of woodwork art he has developed by himself.

Marina Was born in Almaty, Kazahstan. Graduated Art School in 1985, moved to Sant-Petersburg in 1985 to study Arts and Design at Vera Muchina High College, immigrated to Israel in 1990. Since 1991 working in Israel Antiquities Authority as an archeological drawer. Making dolls about 15 years, took part in numerous exhibitions in Israel. The works have been presented in private collections all over the world. Two kinds of handmade dolls are exhibited now in “Sara7” art gallery in Haifa, Israel.
One kind – “big” dolls – costumed fantasy images made from different materials for interior decoration and “playing” - there parts are movable to add them (and their habitats) various shades of emotions. Characters coming in strong colors and unusual shapes – from ugly princesses to funny monsters, but this kind of dolls for adults only – they are fragile and need careful handling.
The other kind – “small” soft sculptures of very beautiful human femininity, made from stockings and padding with humor and love. The palm-sized Rubens ladies will decorate any mirror or shelf with their presence, and will make you smile of their independent feminine Affairs.

Ханан Мильнер родился в Вильнюсе в 1949 году.
С 1964 г. живет в Израиле. Выпускник академии "Бецалель" в Иерусалиме.
Принимал участие в мастерклассах известного австрийского художника Эрнста Фукса в Вене. Повышал мастерство техники живописи во Флоренции.
Работы художника выставлялись в персональных и групповых выставках в Израиле,
Европе, Южной Америке и США. Владелец галереи "Сара 7" в Хайфе.

At the beginning of his artistic career, Hanan Milner’s work was largely devoted to so-called popular surrealist style. However, in the later years, while constantly perfecting various painting techniques Hanan turned to the still-life genre giving it an original and highly humanizing interpretation. His still-life paintings exude a seemingly effortless suggestivity which is paradoxically underscored by utmost precision.
In other words he achieved in his mature work a remarkable degree of high-class artistic control and elegantly crafted expressivity.
Dr. Dov-Ber Kerler
Oxford University, UK

Olga comes from one of the most prominent artist families in Russia. Her paternal grandfather, Prof. Victor Oreshnikov, presided for almost three decades (1953-1978) as the rector of Repine Academy of Fine Arts in Leningrad, the most important academy of art in the entire of U.S.S.R. He was also one of the leading artistic figures in Leningrad and a member of the Soviet Academy. Roman Kotlarevsky, Olga’s maternal grandfather, was a renowned composer and a professor of composition at the Leningrad Conservatory of Music. Olga’s parents and close relatives a re all either painters, art historians, or practicing musicians.

Olga’s artistic talents surfaced very early in her childhood. Her family recognized and nurtured those talents in music and the plastic arts. During her childhood, drawing and piano playing were Olga’s favorite pastimes. Having no formal training, she drew, painted and practiced music for hours and read stories of the past: Jewish, Christian and Russian legends were her most loved.

Fruits of Olga’s early accomplishments were exhibited when she was 10 and 12 years old in the Composer’s House and the Academy of Science in Leningrad. Olga’s formal artistic training began when she entered the Repine Academy of Fine Arts. In 1987 she graduated the Academy with an M.A. degree in Fine Arts, specializing in Monumental Arts. After graduating, Olga developed her art. She participated in several group exhibitions in Leningrad, as well as in an arranged exhibition at the Soviet Union of Artists which traveled through the U.S.S.R. However, the political upheaval of the late 1980’s did not favor emerging artists. Thus, Olga found herself working as an illustrator for children books. This experience opened up new ventures for her by allowing her to draw upon her love of fables, legends, religious stories and folklore, and combine these sources with her inner self and her work as an artist.

Наталья Штайнфельд-Боровкова родилась в Ленинграде (ныне Санкт-Петербург) в артистической семье. Её отец, архитектор и художник, оказал большое влияние на выбор жизненного пути Натальи. Она получила академическое художественное образование. В 1991 году она иммигрировала в Израиль, где и живет до сих пор, часто навещая любимый Питер, оказавший огромное влияние на формирование её души, где она сложилась как художник.
В Израиле Наталия участвовала в большом количестве персональных и групповых выставок. Работы художника находятся во многих частных коллекциях как Израиля, так и Европы , Америки и Австралии.

Ирина родилась в России в 1962 году.
Представляет третье поколение художников в своей семье.
В 1981 году Ирина закончила Ярославское художественное училище,
основанное ее дедом, Сергеем Арсеньевичем Матвеевым.
Работала художником-иллюстратором в книжном издательстве.
С 1990 года живет в Израиле.
Ее работы представлены в Музее русского искусства (Джерси Сити, США),
в Музее наивного искусства Латвии (Рига),
в Тульском музее изобразительных искусств,
в Galerie Natalie Boldyreff (Париж),
в галерее "Tribes" (Тель Авив, Израиль),
в галерее "Sarah 7" (Хайфа, Израиль)
и в частных коллекциях многих стран мира.

Ирина говорит: "Я использую образы животных, чтобы рассказывать о людях.
Ну и конечно, об отношениях между мужчиной и женщиной.
В конце-концов, все мы немного животные...

Пирамиды , которые я создаю, имеют философскую и духовную концепцию, отображающую равновесие противоборствующих сил в жизни человека.
Каждый элемент пирамиды это символ и намек.
Например:
- птица символизирует духовность,
- ключ – это ответ на вопросы.
В картинах подчеркивается стремление человека к гармоническому развитию.
Все элементы пирамиды взаимосвязаны.
При этом, каждый зритель может найти свою собственную взаимосвязь этих элементов."

The Last Artist Exhibitions:

2013 - Ein Hod Artists Village (Israel)
Solo Exhibition.
2013 - Imagination Israeli Art
Group Exhibition. (Tel Aviv, Israel)
Solo Exhibition.
2012 - Museum of Russian Art Jersey City,NJ USA
Group Exhibition.
2012 - Imagination Israeli Art
Group Exhibition. (Tel Aviv, Israel)
2011 – Naive art museum of Latvia (Riga)
Solo Exhibition.
2011 - Imagination Israeli Art
Group Exhibition. (Tel Aviv, Israel)
2010 - SALON D’ART CONTEMPORAIN BUSINESS ART
l’Espace Pierre Cardin (Paris, France)
2010 - Mizpe Hayamim Art Gallery (Israel)
Solo Exhibition.
2010 - Ein Hod Artists Village (Israel)
Solo Exhibition. Purple Gate Gallery
2010 - Imagination Israeli Art
Group Exhibition. (Tel Aviv, Israel)
2010 - Ein Hod Artists Village (Israel)
Group Exhibition "Secret"
2009 - Ein Hod Artists Village (Israel)
Solo Exhibition. The Ein Hod Central Art Gallery
2009 - Jerusalem House of Quality (Israel)
Group Exhibition "In a far far away Kingdom..."
2008 - Imagination Israeli Art
Group Exhibition. (Tel Aviv, Israel)
2007 - Castra New Gallery
Group Exhibition "Four artists - four opinions"
Castra Art Center, (Haifa, Israel)

Irena Aizen, who possesses a philosophical mind and a satirical outlook on life, paints philosophical and satirical pictures. Or perhaps, vice versa – satirical and philosophical ones. The trademarks of the artist's style is a psychological approach, fine analyses of human relationship and an impeccable sense of humor.

...When we want to show affection to a child or to a dear person, we might involuntarily call him or her "kitten" or "rabbit". "Rabbit" can be a little girl or a big man: rabbit or hare is a controversial creature. It is a symbol of procreation, continuation of the line, and it is also a spiritual creature. The Chinese considered The Hare to be an eternal animal, condemned to live on the Moon under cinnamon tree and pound in the mortar the Devine potion of immortality. Karl Yung calls the Hare "the helpmate animal", pointing out to the "not awaken one" the way to the Temple, and to "not enlightened one" – the way to revealing a mystery. The Hare is many sided, fickle and deceptive.
All in all the hare has many faces as the man himself.

...The works of Irena Aizen give the viewer what each of us lacks so much: warmth of heart, stability, constancy. As we grow up we learn and accept the "rules of the game" of the adult life, forgetting this magic, subconscious childish feeling, telling us that everything will have a happy end. So let us feed on the positive energy from the images created by the artist's fantasy, and then everything we are used to- will turn into something unusual and all the indifferent – into something thrilling.

Olga Morozova
PhD in art history
Senior assistant
A.S.Pushkin State Museum of
Fine Arts, Moscow

Excerpts from the article "The unreal world of Irena Aizen".
The original article in Russian may be found in the site:
http://www.rusiskusstvo.ru/painter.html?id=192
Translated in English in the site:
http://www.artmajeur.com/?go=user_pages/bio&login=iraizen

Excerpts.
... Irena Aizen who has received classical art education, has created artworks in the framework of traditional painting for a long time, and has comparatively recently turned to the genre of naive art. This turn was a conscious step that the artist herself has explained in her lectures and interviews, but can be seen the best in her works.
...Looking for the explanation of the image of hare for a longer time in different mythological traditions, I can claim that the hare of Irena Aizen is close to the concentrate of mythical saturation. The hare who is the symbol of both wisdom and foolishness, the ideal of both fertility and chastity, the bearer of both richness and poverty, most often reveals itself as a dexterous personage who begins processes, unite the split into a whole, gives power and new beginning. Even if nobody is able to confirm or deny the influence of a concrete mythical hare in the works of Irena Aizen, the fact that gods have the ears of a hare from the Far East to the traditions of the North American Indians, is sufficient for the viewer to understand that these traditions have influenced the artist. It is even not so important which traditions these are, because the priority of painting is a visual insight, and careful viewer will notice the independence of the image of hare. The hares in the paintings are similar enough to give the clear signal that in fact, the little hare is one, the only, the universal one. The hare in the highest degree. Dominance, friendship, submission, interdependence and the other forms of links and linkages – they are visually shown as different sorts of ties – is only the background of the hare of cosmic scale who fills and maintains everything. Yes, the hare can also be a baby, and in this sense the solution of Irena Aizen has been borrowed from the sacred art – there is no baby hare, because the hare is small only in terms of size, otherwise it is the same adult universal hare.
…Another confusing question that perhaps derives from the grammar of the Latvian language, but not from only that, is the gender of hare. Looking at different pictures of hare and reflecting on the mythological functions of hare – for example, a West African myth that the hare had the task to bring people immortality, but it mixed up everything and instead of immortality brought death – the personage of hare associates with a masculine element. The imagination, quick wit, fecundity and agility seem to undoubtedly be masculine symbols. However, the hares of Irena Aizen are all in dresses, if not to count monsters. …Hare is an androgynous creation who possesses the best and the worst features of both genders. In the painting “Name’s day”, the hare as a white angel flies over a table, here and there, and eternally.
Magazine „Rigas Laiks”, June 2011
http://www.rigaslaiks.lv/Saturs.aspx?year=2011&month=6

Excerpts

The creative universe of Natalia Shtainfeld-Borovkov is peculiar and intricate. Traditional criteria and simple definitions are not adequate for its description. Some works show live interest towards modern innovations of art, and some other retreat to still unlimited possibilities of pictorial realism. Deep traditions of culture and professionalism of Sankt Peterburg art school are forced out by the immense practice of the twentieth century art. The artist is deeply attracted by the beauty of nature and material objects. This feeling lends emotional tonality to each her landscape and still-life. She works usually without haste trying to achieve material authenticity and unity of the pictorial image with regard to the details of painting. An additional touch of the paint can result in the change of the painting from being 'portrait of the city' into extremely subjective sensation of its color, space and mood. It can 'transform' dead objects of a still-life into the movement of deformed objects, from tangible forms into silhouettes, patches and signs. Inward, extremely subjective not always clear impulses, which arise from the mood and imagination of the author, are characteristic of some group of paintings. External,outward impressions ore 'irritations' are of no importance for them.Tragic inconsolability, characteristic of modern sensibility, pierced by unsatiable pain of loneliness,- a distinctive feature of a human being in the uncomfortable and cruel world. The artist makes an unexplainable switch from the charming poetry of the white nights in St. Peterburg, above the river Neva and the jard, to the world of grotesque paradoxes and surrealistic phantasmagoria in the spirit of Sergey Paradjanov. The strange and unusual attitude of the painter is a visual sign of her complicated and contradictory experience. What is the sum total? Unexpected waits for us at each turn on Natalia's road, therefore it is impossible to speak about the sum total. It makes her art attractive. At the same time there are her wilfulness and natural development of the artistic process. They are both discernible in the unity of the two contradictions, in the unpridictable changes, digressions and returns, much different from the logic of common place thinking.Ultimately, the most important are the truth and the level of pictorial gift, unconditional sincerity and honesty in the artist's search for more adequate recreation of her spiritual world. Her world is characterized by resistance and catarsis which crowns it,- both are invisible for a strange eye.

Professor Gregori Ostrovsky
Doctor of Art History
from Jerusalem University