Summary
Things don't fit into neat boxes for Yisrael Feldsott, and his paintings show it. If he were a student in a traditional art school, he would get into a lot of trouble for mixing ancient and modern, native and European, East and West, and dirt and pigments. But all of his promiscuous combining doesn't lead to confusion; instead, it adds up to an odd wholeness in which each part retains its unique qualities.
In his painting Regeneration of Spring and the Pachamama, a female form seems to be dissolving into the earth even as she holds a child in her womb. Her knee, breast, and head create interlocking forms that echo Modernist sculpture. The other breast threatens to detach from her body, but the break is as much like a dividing cell as it is like a wound. Here birth and death are interrelated. Muddy layers of translucent paint prevent any form from feeling solid and permanent, while muted blues and grays suggest that earth, sky, and flesh are one. The animal that is sheltered by Pachamama's thigh has the spirit of an ancient cave painting, and the curving branch that shelters most of its body seems like something William Blake would have engraved.See the full content of this document
Extract
Painted Songs of the Amazon
"The lines of distinction get erased, and I am quite fond of that," Feldsott said by phone from his Bolinas, Calif., studio. "There are some things that are fundamental, primordial forces that move things within us, a commonality, a place where we can all share and respect and appreciate each other."
Every person is filled with spirit...See the full content of this document
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