Landscapes are alluring when they depict faraway, unknown places. Inspired by a visit to the Toba River Valley in Western Canada, 70-year old artist Yehouda Chaki's interpretation of this beautiful river landscape is part of a series of landscape paintings he shows.
Chaki will present several of his landscape paintings along with a series of flower vase paintings at Gallery DeNovo for his debut in Ketchum on Friday, Aug. 7, during Gallery Walk from 5-8 p.m.
"It is one of the most fantastic landscapes I have ever seen," said Chaki. "The show at Gallery DeNovo is mostly about some ideas of Greece, Isreal and the Toba River."
Raised in Israel and educated there and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, Chaki makes Montreal, Canada his home. Chaki established career began with group exhibitions in 1959 and solo exhibitions in 1962. His career includes more than 75 one-man shows, more than 300 group exhibitions and his work is in the permanent collections of more than 75 museums and corporations including the Musee d'Art Contemporain de Montreal, Musee de foyer d'Israel in Brussels, Belgium and the Fort Lauderdale Museum in Florida.
In addition, Chaki was head of Painting and Drawing in the Department of Fine Arts at the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal.
"To me, painting is a dialogue between the artist and color," Chaki said. "The subject comes about in the palette of light."
Chaki's use of color and lines are dynamic and a form of German Expressionism, which he said is true of his work because he had many German art professors at the schools he attended.
Chaki is always involved in major art installations and projects including one he is in the process of creating at Concordia University in Montreal. Another project, Chaki's "Mi Makir: A Search for the Missing," was a traveling exhibition he created on the Holocaust.
"It went to 17 museums around the world," Chaki said. "Everything was done by hand and the title of the show was about the people who disappeared during the Holocaust."
Chaki said he is known for working on big pieces. Several of the landscape works, which he will exhibit at Gallery DeNovo, are quite large, which he said are contemporary and fresh. Chaki will be in attendance for the opening of his show.
Sabina Dana Plasse: splasse@mtexpress.com
“Flowers 191-A” by Yehouda Chaki. Oil on paper at Gallery DeNovo.
