Shaula Schaham

Biography

Shaula Schaham is an Israeli born artist who initially pursued a successful career in interior design in the United States. In the last fifteen years upon her return to Israel, she has been a full time artist. She indulges her fascination with texture and color in her mix media art, collage and recently with digital art. Her paintings reflect her love of color and her refined eye. She took part in many exhibitions in Israel and Europe. Her painting was used as a cover to an Italian art book “The great Masters of Contemporary Art”, and she was also included in the book “ The Best 2021 Modern and Contemporary artists” and received a trophy. Shaula also won several prizes for her poetry and photographs.

Artist Statement

My paintings reflect the beauty of the world and my feelings as a result. Colour and texture are the languages I use to express my feelings. I am mostly inspired by the amazing textures in nature and the colors during different seasons and hours of the day. I also have a burning desire to travel the world and discover exotic cultures. I am mostly intrigued by colourful costumes, which inspire me to create textured collages. There is a lot of life force and imagination in my soul, which are not necessarily being expressed in my daily life, but come alive with my vibrant colors. These intense colors, which the observer sees first, are important mainly for the feelings they evoke rather than the images or ideas they project. My hope is to inspire anyone who sees my paintings to connect to the feelings that awaken as a result and to immerse themselves in the colors and feelings if only for a few moments.

What first prompted you to become an artist?

From a young age, I was exposed to art through my mother's artistic talents. In addition to being a lawyer, she also engaged in painting, writing poetry and playing the piano. I used to love watching her paint and at times was painting with her. I was also lucky to have two well-known art teachers in elementary school and in the afternoon, I took an extra painting class with one of them. We were painting and in the background was classical music. Since I was breathing art from a young age, it was instrumental in inspiring me to become an artist.

What kind of an artist, do you ultimately see yourself?

I would like to be known as a contemporary artist known for my acrylic/oil/collage/mix media paintings as well as being a digital artist who sells non-fungible tokens and whose art is being collected and sought after since it seems that this is where the art world is heading.

What are you hoping to communicate to your viewer through your work?

Rather than communicate to my viewers great ideas, I mostly communicate with them through my colors and different textures. These colors evoke many feelings of wellbeing, meditation, adoration of nature in different times of year and day, admiration of flowers, love of people and in general compositions that make people get in touch with their feelings through my work and make their heart sing.

Can you explain the process of creating your work?

My work is not always done the same way. It depends on the media. With my canvas art, I always begin by painting and covering the canvas with a layer of paint in the color I decide on, depending on the subject. That adds depth and texture to the painting. When I have an idea of what I am about to paint, I usually make a sketch with charcoal and then start laying the paint layer after layer.

Many times, I take a brake in the middle and spend time looking at the painting seeing what I need to do next. When I paint over an old painting and have no subject in mind, I sit in meditation staring at the painting for a while trying to figure out how to transform it to something totally different. Many times, during this concentration and with the help of my imagination, I begin to discover hidden shapes and totally new ideas start forming, and that’s what I follow. Other times, I just start working with the different colors until I see a direction I can pursue. At times, I also work with jesso, in order to create more texture. I also work with different textured papers when I work on an abstract painting. I create the composition and then I add the paint. With my digital paintings, I work on my professional I-pad with the apple pencil.

What is your favourite part of the creative process?

My favorite part is when I have a picture in my mind of what my painting is going to be, and accordingly I choose the color pallet and lay the paint just to find out it comes out as I imagined, and the picture in my imagination is coming alive in front of me.

Can you give us an insight into current projects and inspiration, or what we can expect from you in the near future?

I am planning to start taking photoshop lessons, in order to be able to create more interesting digital work, which will be worthy to become a non-fungible token. I also would like to improve my regular work, and I know that it will happen only when I start travelling. The inspiration I get when I travel is the most effective and influential in improving my work. Lately, I have been feeling very depleted since I have not travelled for almost a year and a half, and also because I have been very active during the Covid. When the pandemic began, and it was a new subject, bad as it was, it was a source of new inspiration. Once it began to be too scary, it was no longer a source of new ideas, and it began to be a paralyzing and frightening force that inhibited my work. Now after many months of isolation, fear and bad side effects of the vaccine, it seems that my inspiration dwindled, and now is the time to start travelling and pick up new ideas. Visiting museums in other countries seem to give me unbelievable new ideas and inspiration, and I am sure it will help me come up with great work.

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