Something of John Donne’s famous Meditation 17, written in 1624, resonates in Adi Zekcher’s works. While the poet wrote “any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,” Adi’s paintings seem to say “any man’s life touches me, because I am involved in mankind.” As we look at his art, we perceive the man behind it, and what we see is a man immersed in life. An honest man resorting to art to capture life, not to escape it. These collages and oil paintings are not meant as an artist’s quest for mastery but as vehicles to let the observer consider aspects and moments of life. In fact, this is the work of a young artist who has produced more than 250 paintings over the last three years and uses the finger-painting technique to focus on color and composition. In many cases, photographs of familiar places or of people of different races, ages, and circumstances, are enough for the artist to fathom into human feelings that then surface as colors and shapes. In others, any city corner can trigger the process. We always perceive the quest to allow the complexity of human responses to impregnate the canvas, as if the painter was willing to become transparent to let the viewer and the work interact with each other and to create their own artistic experience, almost without the intervention of the artist. Adi has called his work “artistic exercises in visual progress” and, certainly, progress is very evident, as if each new painting were responding to all the “artistic exercises” that the painter has created before. There is also one additional apparent preoccupation: to consciously align with Van Gogh’s quest for the essential rhythms, disregarding the obvious. As a result, there is no intellectual affectation in Adi Zekcher’s art: beauty is allowed in, as well as joy, sadness, ambiguity and hope. In a world of increasing cynicism and pretension, this refreshing approach to art is highly welcome.
