Kiddush (2008) Painting by Tzvi Abraham

Tzvi was born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1948 and grew up in the New Jersey suburbs. He received a BA in philosophy and religion from Oberlin College, Ohio, then came to Israel in 1970 to pursue rabbinical studies. He spent the next ten years as a theological student and teacher at academies in Israel, receiving Rabbinical Ordination in 1976.
In 1980 he began graduate work in Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, while working in Jewish educational projects. After discovering Jewish Puppet Theatre he began to write plays, and within a few years was directing his own Theatre and Puppet Theatre. While engaged in the theatre work, he took up art studies, discovering a talent for painting. He pursued formal studies and also trained with American artists at the Jerusalem Studio.
His favourite subject in philosophy is metaphysics, especially the form that it takes in medieval Aristotelian philosophy. Metaphysics contemplates nature as being, reality as it relates to the Divine. His painting is a direct expression of this interest. The sense of beauty that guides his brush is the direct counterpart to a sense of truth that guides his philosophical contemplation. It represents a commitment to the real, and a fascination with the natural that is animated by a yearning to reach into and beyond it, to the Divine. The sense of nature as referring to something beyond itself is the foundation of his aesthetics. His visual portrayal of the objects he paints is guided by what he perceives they mean. To him, a good visual concept, like a good metaphysical one, should catapult the soul into the presence of the Truth and the Beauty which is its ultimate desire.
The paintings that an artist most admires are likely to influence his style and aesthetic judgment. Tzvi is influenced by Rembrandt, Vermeer and Medieval Painting. For him, they carry a similar message, offering an image that is a kind of magic mirror, reflecting the world yet conceived to communicate something which the eye cannot see: not what the painter felt, but what he hoped for. Most of Tzvi’s paintings express a tension between those two styles, two ways of using the eye to offer the soul a foretaste of eternity.
He considers himself a Still Life painter. In a very real, though somewhat narrower, sense he draws upon the western tradition of still-life painting. He expresses great admiration for 17th century still life painting and the painting of the great 19th century French artist Jean-Baptiste Chardin.

• Nationality: ISRAEL
• Date of birth : unknown date
• Artistic domains: Represented by a Gallery,
• Groups: Contemporary Israeli Artists Artists presented by a gallery