Journey of Ascension to Israel

     The magnificent beauty of the earth around us continues to inspire Rachelle Kaufman wherever she is living. After leaving New York, she resided and worked in the U.S. Virgin Islands for six years and was inspired to paint everyday. Through her art gallery, she sold many paintings to patrons from all over the world. The rhythms and colors of the lush tropical landscape, sky and climate were visual paradise. She saw how the shapes in nature duplicated those of the female figure and incorporated them into her oil landscapes as can be seen in “Woman in Trunk Bay, A Road on St. John, Woman in Hythe Pond, Mt. Fuji Lovers and Women in the Woods.” 
     Drawing and painting have been her passion for fifty years and she have studied in New York at the HS of Art and Design, The Student Art League, Pratt Institute, Queens College, SUNY Purchase, Westchester Art Center and numerous workshops.
     After visiting Israel over the last few years, Rachelle has found true purpose sharing the energy of the epicenter of the world. She been working on paintings expressing her feelings about the politics, history and culture of the Holy Land interspersed with its beauty. This was part of the motivation towards her making Aliyah to the land with her husband.
      Using the flat bright colors of acrylic paints as tools of self-expression now, Rachelle’s canvases are larger and she enjoys using gels and other materials mixed with the paint to add texture and depth. The Impressionist artists’ focus on the subtly of light and color interacting with the objects helped form the emphases in her work. She is also inspired by the way Renaissance artists used perspective and subtle changes in color and light to draw the viewer into a scene. The importance of controlling how the viewer moves through a painting by carefully planning the composition was a lesson she learned from the Neoclassicists and Romanticists.
      Before travelling to Israel, the Florida landscape inspired Rachelle and the birds, which captured her heart, became a key feature. The water was different than St. John and she became absorbed in its reflective qualities as well as how the surface changed by the movement of the creatures below and the wind above.
      In Florida, as a member of WITVA (Women in the Visual Arts), she has exhibited her work in The Friends of the Spanish River Library Gallery Solo Exhibit May – June 2014, The Coral Springs Museum of Art Exhibit September 2013, The Sugar Sand Park Community Center Annual Juried Art Show August – September 2013 Winner of Judge’s Mention, Creative Dimensions II Juried Art Exhibit January – March 2013, David Posniak JCC Exhibition September – October 2012 Winner of Third Place, Whole Foods Café Exhibit November 2012 – May 2013; FAU – Dorothy Schmidt College of Arts Exhibit November 2012                        
    Each place she has lived, Rachelle have volunteered her time teaching the elderly to paint in different venues and learned the true pleasure of guiding people to tap into their creative side to escape their daily ills and express their feelings.
    Presently, Rachelle is living in Tzfat Israel. The challenges are many for a new olah trying to learn the language and getting acclimated to a new level of energy. She is incorporating the spiritual awareness she acquired as a student of Kabbalah with the reality of living as a Jew in Tzfat. She hopes