Cymber, an artist in the process of exploring those phenomena hovering around the hazy and illusive border that constitutes the essence of "reality," discovers an abstract unity around which he creates his artistic concept. In a unique way, his paintings reflect this abstract unity and illuminate a philosophical connection which parallels his inner connection to the world of Kabbalah.
The inspiration of the world of Kabbalah leads, throught the paintings, to Cymbers personal interpretation of the four worlds: Azilut [Emanation], Briyah [Creation], Yitzirah [Formation], and Asiyah [Doing], seeking spiritual completion through the Ten Sephirot, creating a geometry of circles and levels that are ritual metaphors leading to the higher attributes (Sephirot) in the Kabbalah, reaching upwards towards the Keter [Crown].
For example, in his "Emanation, paintings, Cymber is involved in examining the light emanating towards us in Kabbalistic terms. Emanation is a Platonic term borrowed from the Greeks. The Kabbalists explain emanation using the sun and light as a parable. The sun radiates light that lessens the further away it gets from the source. Just as it is impossible for us to look directly into the light of the sun, so too is divinity impossible to achieve physically. Only reflections are attainable, but they are of a lesser degree of "divinity" than the source. Cymbers paintings test the limits of illumination, reaching upwards towards the source of divine light.
Other paintings relate to the upper world of loving and giving and its connection to the forces of nature, which are described by the Kabbalists in the sentence, "an upside down world I saw."
In this new exhibition, we can recognise how the search for compositions expressing spiritual experiences through perishable materials such as paper, feathers and pieces of wood, which characterized his work in the past, now makes way for an energetic burst in the style of "action paintings," which leave clues to the natural base materials, but where these base materials are elevated to a higher level and reach an abstraction of nature which could be termed abstract automatism.
The art critic Greenberg has described the crammed and compressed nature of the paintings "all overness" embracing an absolute action in which the artist merges with the creation. As such, the works are in the spirit of the action painting school (a school to which artists such as Jackson Pollock and William de Kooning belong). The artist's whole body participates in the splashing and spraying of the paint from the can to the canvas spread on the floor. Such a direct process enables true self expression; a process of completely giving of oneself that expresses the struggle with the colour of the paint and the colourful world itself, while simultaneously controlling the direction of ideas from inner to outer worlds.
Cymber creates images of the expanses of the cosmos, building his interpretation of the universe in a weave of lines and spots which look like dripping fluids collecting into puddles of colour, moving between galaxies, examining the essence of the transition between materialism and spirituality.
Cymbers language is dynamic, intuitive and expressive. The use of biblical fonts and letters, as a significant formal element, add an additional dimension to the cosmic images leading to a bridging of the spiritual and the earthly, through signifier and signified, each element influencing the other and creating unity and harmony.
The use of letters as forces acting on our world forges a connection of meanings which hold within them a hidden prayer for unity, for a process of simultaneous giving and receiving.
Cymbers original techniques produce a rich rainbow of shades. The earth colours, rust, a mix of copper residues in shades of turquoise and brown are produced from acid. The use of mixed technique as background adds another dimension of depth. Cymber makes use of a variety of available materials and rhythmic stain-shapes ("Tachisme shapes"). He spreads layers of fluid paint freely, making use of brush strokes as if asking to eliminate control and supervision and to create a new order. The use of different materials, the readymade, contrasting colours, the coloured areas moving from the dark, symbolising a world of doing and toil, and up into the light, symbolising infinity and emanation, represent an elevation of the spirit over the material.
Cymber is imbued with a humanistic world perspective, aspiring to an aesthetic and moral ideal expressed through his work; a call from the depths to row upstream, against the current to the exalted light.
The works radiate power struggles, a dialect of questions and answers within a dynamic intellectual trance leading to a virtuoso improvisation of abstract shapes. The works carry within them rhythms built of intuition combined with intellect, strength and freedom like the melody of a musical composition.
The artist adds an innovative aspect in the form of the language of Judaism, a fascinating mystical element which asks to imbue the flow of light through contemplation, expressed through an impressive colour palette. The style sweeps the viewers towards a unique vision; we experience an elevation into the expanses of the cosmos, a magical process, from the search, until the discovery, as a totality.
Anat Nitzan Curator of the Exhibition
Anat Nitzan
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