Miri Freud Mayblum is a versatile artist who lives and works in Israel. She studied art history, musicology and Jewish studies at the Hebrew University, and has specialized in many fields of art: gold crafting, charcoal painting with Marcel Yanco, stained glass studies with Josheph Shaltiel, ceramics with Leah Majaro-Mintz, sculpture with Ora Shaltiel, drawing and painting with Eugenia Belkine, and oil and acrylic painting with Gitit
Harel. She is a member of the Society for Scientific Graphology (Israel). Her diverse training and extensive knowledge in various fields are expressed in her works, in an original and surprising manner.
Mayblum says: “My collection of works is the product of layers of my life, with many colorful textures, with their specific shades, laid on top of each other over the years, weaving my life as a tapestry, with each thread being a small step, and all together they burst out of me accompanied by great love…” Mayblum creates out of a sense of necessity to express herself and the world surrounding her. Mayblum believes her works are influenced by Renoir, Dali, Frida Kahlo, and the Art Nouveau movement.
Using vivid colors, Mayblum creates wonderful works that combine various artistic approaches. All her works stem from photographs. The digitally edited photos are woven with delicate outlines, and acrylic and oil images to create works that resemble silk fabrics, rich with color and texture. The creation process begins with a sensitive eye that beholds falling leaves or a shop window that reflects a distorted reality, and continues with the desire to express a personal viewpoint that transforms a fraction of reality, captured at a certain moment, into a new reality. The visible reality is removed from its immediate context. Photography, in Mayblum’s case, isn’t employed for the purpose of documentation, but is the inspiration and the point of departure for what ultimately is a . Mayblum expands reality, empowers it, and exposes the viewer to sights and content that
he wasn’t aware that existed.
The subjects of the works are diverse and roam naturally from the specific and local to the global. An evening gown, candlesticks, and a European flower bouquet are displayed beside urban shop windows, like these in every city in the world, a generic international airport with slot machines, or a a typical Viennese coffee house where the viewer can virtually smell the intoxicating aroma of the coffee poured by two beautiful women into designed ceramic cups. The blue evening gown with golden leaves reminds the viewer of Gustav Klimt and the refined and beautiful Vienna Secession movement. The exhibition also features the “Fish in an Aquarium” series, a strong social statement symbolizing contemporary human existence. A reality in which the fish (us) swim in circles in an environment that appears to be natural, but is entirely man-made. An artificial environment down to the last detail. The reality that surrounds us is one in which we are completely exposed and reflected in every random or intended glance at us. We are swimming round and round in the aquarium of reality, completely man-fabricated, with partial awareness and lack of ability to change the current situation in which we (and the fish) find ourselves.