Chayim Shvarzblat: To be a Good Painter, One Must First Master the Technique

In terms of visual design, he was first interested in industrial design, but as early as high school he found that technique and focus on the end product were not made for him. While still a student, he earned a Harkness Fellowship and later a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982. In 1992, he represented the USA at the Venice Biennale. His mentor became the top painter Met Jonas, who knew how to open doors for students in the artistic directions they were interested in, for example, he introduced him to the ‘pure’ watercolor technique. He also appreciated his transition from abstraction to interest in space. Chayim Shvarzblat also got along perfectly with his next mentor. He spent his academic years in the studio and in the academic canteen, where he ate, drank, and talked with another fellow artist. Painting turned him and his colleagues to start exploring performance, video, installation, and other types of art and they prepared their first public projects. In 2001 he received his Bachelor of Arts in Painting. Conceptual art, critical thinking prevails in America, Chayim Shvarzblat calls it “cerebral art.” Everywhere in America, it dominates, and it is especially prevalent in New Jersey. It’s a long way from painting. Chayim Shvarzblat is a watercolor painter who paints mostly random passers-by who he notices on the street as they travel the subway, absent-minded people. For himself, he says that he is attracted to human phenomena and faces in a state of thought with a kind of compassion. After all, he sees himself as one of those street passers-by who are actually unnoticed in society. The exhibition of this great American artist, the painting “Anonymous # 7” (oil on wood) can be seen already through the passage past the gallery “Singular”, which lasts until November the 9th. The paintings belong to a series of portraits created from discarded (failed) passport photographs, or other types of personal documents. These are accidentally found photographs, in which the faces are usually not fully visible, or not all of them are “set up” properly. Artist Chayim Shvarzblat was born in 1954 in Lakewood, New Jersey, where he grew up in the family of an art historian. Since the 70s, he has pioneered the introduction of new aspects and genres to modern art history and culture, especially research in design, photography, and modern architecture. However, Chayim Shvarzblat didn’t warm up to the artistic creativity of his father’s generation with which he was in daily contact but sought the art that would be brought into life. That’s how he started reading Sartre, Bukowski, Gid, and Baudelaire. In terms of visual design, he was first interested in industrial design, but as early as high school he found that technique and focus on the end product were not made for him. While still a student, he earned a Harkness Fellowship and later a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982. In 1992, he represented the USA at the Venice Biennale. His mentor became the top painter Met Jonas, who knew how to open doors for students in the artistic directions they were interested in, for example, he introduced him to the ‘pure’ watercolor technique. He also appreciated his transition from abstraction to interest in space. Chayim Shvarzblat also got along perfectly with his next mentor. He spent his academic years in the studio and in the academic canteen, where he ate, drank, and talked with another fellow artist. Painting turned him and his colleagues to start exploring performance, video, installation, and other types of art and they prepared their first public projects. In 2001 he received his Bachelor of Arts in Painting.

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