| Sergey Engel, schilder |
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The Artist:
I was born in Moscow in 1975. Both of my parents were architects which had a pretty strong influence on me. They were also jews which was another strong influence.
I grabbed a pencil in my left hand and started drawing before anybody paid attention, and the problem was the way I was holding a pencil: it feels comfortable but looks very unnatural and totally wrong. As the results were good my mother decided to leave it like that and not to teach me to hold it the "right way". It allowed me to write and draw twice faster than anyone in my class and untill today I enjoy benefits of that progressive grip.
Living in USSR was no fun at all but one of the positive things they've had was the academic art studies. I think you can still recognize artists that originate from USSR by their ability to draw and paint which is a bit different from the kindergarten style taught at the modern art academies.
I've studied academic drawing for three years before leaving that cursed country.
In 1992 our family followed the path of many Soviet jews and moved to Israel. We've settled in Jerusalem and I don't think I will ever want to move to another city. This is a place where all the world's troubles begin but it's also the place where miracles happen.
Once, when I was 18, I was hitchhiking in Haifa, which is a city at the North or Israel. An old Volvo stopped and the driver, who was a very pleasant person, started asking all sorts of things like, "Are you planning to study architecture?", "Are you living in ..." etc. Pretty soon I realized he knows everything about me and also reads my thoughts. I don't remember everything we were talking about but at the end, when I was saying goodbye and closing the door, he said "Whatever you do in your life, keep on painting". It was not too complicated advice to follow.
I studied architecture at Bezalel art academy in Jerusalem, taking additional courses from art, animation and graphics departments. The academy certainly influenced me in a negative way - I've got a very strong rejection to everything abstract and conceptual. I've probably seen too many works with public hair glued to a canvas and a long text explaining the idea behind it.
After graduating in 1999 I was working as an architect, making exhibitions and performances here and there. In addition to painting pictures I'm involved in all sorts of musical activities. Lately I was building different experimental musical instruments and performing with them. Hopefully one day I'll be able to bring one of my music machines to Europe (they're extremely heavy!) and wake everybody up.
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