Eti Ziecer

Letters come together to create words that develop into stories. These connections produce a new language, a new world. As an artist, that is what I am trying to do with my paintings: to connect people, worlds and cultures. The roots are the foundation, the starting point, from which connections are made and new worlds created. The here and now relies on the past, on traditions, on an ancient language. As an artist, I connect the past with the present, yesterday with today, ancient to modern, old to new.

The connection to the past is especially important to me as a daughter of Holocaust survivors whose families were erased from the earth. I grew up in a small but amazing family; my parents choose goodness, joy, the love of humanity and, above all – beauty, aesthetics, culture, values and music. That is where my roots are, that is where the art that I create comes from. These connections cannot exist without my significant convergence point – Jaffa – a city of connections between different cultures, between the old and new. The city in which I grew up and that continues to be the basis of my essence and inspiration.

The connection between ancient and modern, intertwined throughout my life, is mainly emphasized in the last series of paintings where ancient symbols take on additional meanings. The constant motif in all of my paintings is gold: a motif expressing splendorous regality, emphasizes the most ancient roots of the Jewish nation – idolization of the golden calf and its repercussions – and their continuity within modernday culture. My paintings apply a mixed and multilayered technique, resembling sculpting with paint using large canvases that enable me to express the full range and intensity of emotions.