Israeli artist Zvia Merdinger creates exceptionally emotive large-scale oil and mixed media paintings distinguished by using a broad spectrum of vivid colors. Although the influence of German painter Gerhard Richter’s large abstract works is immediately evident upon initially glancing at the works in both the application of color as well as some of the surface treatment, Merdinger tactfully retains her originality by juxtaposing these elements with her own unique techniques as well as subject matter based on her own personal experience. In doing so she creates a mesmerizing blend of abstraction and figuration which captures the eye instantly and keeps it roving among the colors.
Much of this personal subject matter harkens back to some of Merdinger’s earliest memories of the sublime, endless forests in Russia which she encountered whilst residing in a refugee camp in Kirgizstan, USSR during World War II. These youthful memories resurface in her paintings as abstracted, organic forms, which, coupled with the scale of the works, allows them to appear as large and striking as they would have been to a child. The abstraction of the ground behind the natural forms also lends the works a dreamlike quality and removes them from reality.
