Statement

Artist Statement: Flowers as Universal Portraits and Landscapes of the Journey

Every painting is a self portrait. I do not paint flowers. I use form, color, and texture to convey emotions. I use flowers as visual metaphors conveying many themes. The fragility of flowers, coupled with their ephemeral beauty, delicate nature, and striking color amplify the drama. The fleeting existence of flowers triggers urgency.

Having no faces of their own, flowers in my artwork represent images with which viewers of diverse backgrounds can relate. Overcoming superficial dissimilarities, they serve as portraits of universal appeal.

The flowers I paint are focused on the individual or the relationship between two individuals. At times I celebrate individualism by emphasizing the one within the many. The many may be painted using complementary colors and the reversal of darks and lights.

I rejoice the expressiveness I find in the twists and turns of edges of petals, stems, and leaves. Occasionally, I add a dimension of expressiveness by applying paint with a palette knife, enhancing the drama by not only leaving knife strokes visible but engraving the paint too.

I became interested in painting the landscape when I realized the symbolism of water as representing life and serenity, or broadly speaking that to which we aspire, often so close yet elusive. My compositions often depict a body of water seen through a screen of trees. While partially obscuring and thus connoting a hurdle these trees provide glimpses. My landscapes like my flowers are not merely intended to reflect nature but rather to project an inner reflection; a metaphorical journey.

I stretch canvases over wide bars and paint all visible surfaces. I continue the composition all around creating a nearly three-dimensional work that can be viewed from multiple angles; in essence saying that the painting is bigger than the canvas.

I admire the intensity of emotions found in the works of the Expressionists. Like them, I too mix my soul with my paints.  However, I strive to be subtle in my expressions.

“The plants [in Liron’s work] become anthropomorphic lovers” 
Joseph Jacobs, Curator of American Art at the Newark Museum

A word about oil paints:

I am invested in my work lasting. The paint I use is made by Old Holland. This paint formula has been around since 1664 and uses the same recipe used by the Dutch masters. I use only those colors that are completely lightfast. The paint is manufactured using stone rollers rather than metal rollers in order to avoid the change of color resulting from oxidized Cadmium. It is mixed only with cold-pressed linseed oil without fillers or artificial driers. Consequently, the paint has the highest concentration of pigments resulting in unparalleled intensity and longevity.