Paintings by Zahava Lupu

Zahava Lupu

by

Amos Aricha

When one encounters a work of Zahava Lupu, there is no need to question its authenticity; the work itself is an expansive and overarching sketch of the artist's personality. That is why every encounter with her pictures enables us to become aware of a fascinating process of disclosure, by which the viewer journeys through the artist's inner personality. Beyond the apparent abstraction lies a mysterious world that lures the viewer on to discover its markers and codes. Nonetheless, these markers still conceal part of their secret.

The tempest of feelings has become a kind of gateway a fabled world, entrancing the viewer and making him a participant in Ms. Lupu's emotional language. The observer must decipher and interpret for himself the hidden meanings of the stripes and the pales adorning the picture. Within the last several years, Lupu has disseminated on the canvas or the paper a number of pictorial structures, which oscillate between the abstract lyrics and an impressionism so idiosyncratic that the visitor cannot get tired of glancing at her work. The very fact that the artist provokes the emotion is, in itself, a rare achievement. Nevertheless, she does not abandon a rational and sober perception, which is clearly apprehensible to those who know the importance of architecture in her work. This dimension is expressed through the compositions and through the way Lupu occupies the surfaced with her colors and brushes.

The fascinating odyssey into the artist's inner world is a cultural experience insofar as the visitor suddenly realizes that he is confronting an independent artistic statement that is the realm of but few artists. Lupu's control of the mysteries and wealth of her pictorial language is so skillful, that sometimes one may think that the matter is less important than the manner, and that the work is a quintessence of the artist's tempestuous feelings. Furthermore Zahava Lupu succeeds - perhaps unconsciously and in an intuitive way - to veil her pictures in a shadow of mystery, inciting the viewer to remove the veils to discover the message, to draw part of the wealth he finds in it, and to follow the hidden path that climbs to great heights, which moments before seemed unattainable.

Finally, there is a fairy-tale quality in Lupu's works, achieved only by those rare artists whose pictorial language has reached a very high degree of perfection and coherence. Such pictures belong to that category of works, upon which Ernest Hemingway, a fine connoisseur of paintings, used to gaze for an entire hour, as if he wanted to unite with the art and to annihilate his ego. When there is an inexhaustible need to apprehend the aura that emanates from the picture, the zenith of the dialogue between creator and viewer is reached. Every fine art connoisseur hopes to live through such an artistic experience. This is precisely the kind of experience Zahava Lupu's works offer.

Amos Aricha - Art Critique