ARTcnet Presents Israeli artist Yitshak Greenfield Paintings and Collages of mystical geometric abstractions, landscapes and still life paintings.

Yitzhak Greenfield

paintings and mixed media

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Yitzhak Greenfield resume
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I am trying to paint Jerusalem as a metaphysical entity. The Jewish people journey through many landscapes and always return to Jerusalem. I have lived in Jerusalem for 35 years and Israel the 13 previous years. Its stones, sky and letters fill me with awe. Jerusalem has encompassed my inner world and become my inner landscape.

In Jerusalem I came in contact with a world of light and mystery. Stones, buildings and books quivered with history! My interest in the Bible, Kabala and archaeology became a daily revelation. The Hebrew letter, a square finality, each letter a rung in a ladder of values, hidden strivings and circular emanations entered my inner-landscape.

Scraps of old pages, Hebrew inscriptions (remaining from the Second Temple), letters, old bookbindings, ancient Babylonian cylinder seal sources (in the Israel Museum and the Brooklyn Museum) and Sephiric charts from the Kabala helped me map out my landscape of Jerusalem. The mixed media technique I have developed, using wood or canvas as a base, collage, acrylic and oil, has enabled me to create a relief painting with a feeling of great depth and timelessness. I am reaching toward a mystical geometric abstraction that tries to capture the essence of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem will always be in my mind's eye.

THE TERRESTRIAL CITY AND THE PAINTFR

JERUSALEM AND YITZHAK GREENFIELD

               A TERRESTRIAL CITY
          WITH POLICEMEN
                     BEGGERS
                   THIEVES
              LIARS
                         POLITICIANS
                                A CITY
                     LIKE ALL OTHER CITIES
                            BUT
                                   AMONG THE SHAPES
                                      ONE SINGULAR FORM
              THIS IS JERUSALEM
                                      AND AFTER
                                                            WHAT ABOUT THAT AFTER
                  A DIFFERERENT FOOD
                              FOR THE POOR OF JERUSALEM
         A DISH OF EYES
                                      THE EYE IS THE SPIRIT
THE SPIRIT
                                           IS THE EYE OF THE BEAST
                                                   AND ANOTHER LAW FOR SEEING
                                     JERUSALEM IS SOMETHING TO READ
                                                                               A BOOK
                                                                        HER EDIFICES
ARE OF THE SAME MATERIAL; THE BOOKBINDINGS ARE THE
POINTING SEALING THE STONES
THIS MAGIC STONE OF THE BOOKS
JERUSALEM
IS
ALL
THE
NAMES
OF THE
NAME
AND GREENFIELD IS ONE OF HER BOOKBINDERS

RUBIN KANALENSTEIN, 1985

Mystical Geometric Abstractions

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Greenfield: Jerusalem and Ein Kerem |Greenfield Pomegranates and Flowers

Yitzhak Greenfield Mystical Geometric Abstraction: Hebrew Pyramid with Ten Commandments
$3,000.00
Unframed; Shipping, handling and insurance are included; 55 cm x 36 cm; 22" x 14"; Acrylic painting on scored and folded paper. The impetus behind the series of mystical paintings was to discover a graphic language for representing Jewish concepts and philosophies, including Jewish theology and Kabbala. The pyramid represents Mount Sinai, the squares the Ten Commandments.
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Yitzhak Greenfield Mystical Geometric Abstraction: Star of David with Ten Commandments Core
$5,000.00
Unframed; Shipping, handling and insurance are included; 110 cm x 72 cm; 43 ½" x 28 ½"; Acrylic painting on scored and folded paper. "When I was a child, I had a basic mystical experience, the seeing of a blinding inner light that conquers the whole space of the mind. I was nine or ten when this happened. It was terrifying, extraordinary, unlike life and it happened a number of times... Now, in my painting, I'm looking again for that source, that light coming from inside the painting out - illumination with reference to timelessness and Judaism - which represents a timeless existence."
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Yizhak Greenfield Mystical Geometric Abstraction: Jacob's Ladder
$6,000.00
Unframed; Shipping, handling and insurance are included; 110 cm x 72 cm; 43 ½" x 28 ½"; Acrylic painting on scored and folded paper. Another name for this piece is the "twenty-two runged ladder of Basic Hebrew Letters." This painting is basic to the Bible and Judaism.
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Yitzhak Greenfield Mystical Geometric Abstraction: Shadai (Name of G-d)Sky/Land/Pyramid
$5,000.00
Unframed; Shipping, handling and insurance are included; 110 cm x 72 cm; 43 ½" x 28 ½"; Acrylic painting on scored and folded paper. The painting is a sky-landscape and merged pyramid. "It's a paradox for these works are very emotional for me though they deal with countings, numerical construction and geometric design. For me, they're very real, not at all abstract. People without a sense of this are lost; they have nothing to lean on. They're looking for earth, for sky - but really the paintings contain the whole sky."
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Yitzhak Greenfield Mystical Geometric Abstraction: "Let There Be Light"
$5,000.00
Framed; Shipping, handling and insurance are included; 110 cm x 72 cm; 43 ½" x 28 ½"; Acrylic painting on scored and folded paper. The triangle of white light breaks through layers of darkness revealing the blue of water.
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Yitzhak Greenfield Mystical Geometric Abstraction: "And the Spirit of G-d Moved on the Face of the Water"
~~$5,000.00~~ $4,500.00 On Sale!
Unframed; Shipping, handling and insurance are included; 72 cm x 110 cm; 28 ½" x 43 ½"; Acrylic painting on scored and folded paper. "I am trying to find the unity in a mystic language via painting. I was influenced by Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. Newman was trying to unify and clarify things, finding a spiritual way to say things, to bridge the earthly and spiritual realms. Rothko I like; the deeply spiritual feelings, the way the colors hover - these are the paeans, songs of praise to G-d."

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Yitshak Greenfield Landscapes of Jerusalem and Ein Kerem