Birds

Fima (Ephraïm Roeytenberg) was born in Harbin, China, in 1914 to Russian-Jewish parents. For the first two decades of his life, he studied Chinese painting in Russian Academy of Fine Arts in Shanghai, while simultaneously studying Chinese calligraphy. That was a period when he became intrigued by Chinese philosophy and was deeply influenced by Taoism. As he moved to Israel in 1949 and Paris in later years, his multicultural background allowed him to use Western-influenced abstract painting methods to recover the spirituality of the Far East, marking his distinctive and original identity in contemporary art.

Birds is consistent with Fima's other works in terms of his abstract use of colours. Against a brushed black background is a stroke of pink to the left, and several strokes of white and blue to the right, allowing the audience to envision birds being trapped in a dark space. The use of white to the left edge of the painting and its descending trace indicates a window of light that calls for the birds to an outer space. The pursuit of natural objects and birds as a symbol of longevity in Taoism therefore transcends the visual intuition to reflect Fima's own spiritual state.