About Me

I was born in Ashkelon, Israel, and that is where I first picked up a brush.

I was eight years old. The first painting I remember making is of my grandfather — sitting in his chair, one leg crossed over the other, a cigarette in his hand. I can still see him exactly as he was that day. From there I kept painting people: portraits, mostly, and for years a long series of rabbis. Faces have always been where I start.

Realism is my foundation. I love the discipline of it — the patience it takes to get a hand, a fold of cloth, the light on someone's face to sit right on the canvas. But over time I found there were things I needed to say that a likeness could not hold. That is where abstraction came in. Now I move between the two, and each one keeps the other honest.

Alongside painting I play the violin. To me they come from the same place. Art and music are the two clearest ways I know to say something true about being alive — and the reason I keep making both.

Every piece in this shop comes out of that.

— Eliya Siani