Today we’d like to introduce you to Yoram Gal.
Hi Yoram, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I was born in Jerusalem, Israel in 1952. My high school years were in London, England 1963-1969. I became an officer in the Israeli army and then studied Theater and Cinema in Tel Aviv University, graduating with Honors in 1977. I started painting at age 12, and knew I want to be and will be an artist. A writer, an actor, a director and a painter.
I became all those.
I was always anti establishment, and I paid a big price for that, but I am proud and happy to have kept my integrity throughout my 50 years of making art.
I was told many times to choose one art. Playwright, director, actor, painter? “Decide!” But I chose all, “Choose one direction, one style!” they said.
I refused to comply and did theater, cinema, television,’and painting. Acting, directing, designing stage, designing lighting, exhibiting my paintings since 13, and painting in every style there is: realism, lyrical realism, expressionism, impressionism, abstract…portraits, landscapes, crazy whimsical dreams…every style and any style I felt like painting in.
I was called an anarchist, a madman, and many other names. But I also received many awards, great reviews, and big successes in all the different arts. “Does he think himself to be ‘a Renaissance man?’ wrote some cynical critic in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz? Yes, is my reply, with a capital “Y”.
I am a free spirit, who is lucky to be doing what he loves, every day, and loves what he is doing, every day. And I make a great living from it.
The road was, and still is, long and winding. I am now writing novels too. Publishing them takes me on a new tangent.
In the year 2000, I became a father for the first time. And just then my first full length feature movie “WILD” came out into theaters in Israel and was invited to 10 international film festivals. The movie lost money and I got into debt. So I brought my paintings to America, and they became an instant hit.
Since 2002, I am exhibiting and selling my paintings in the US with success. My studio in Old Jaffa, Israel, a beautiful artists’ quarter near Tel Aviv, opened to the public as a gallery in 2015 and since then, my paintings shipped to 42 countries.
I just turned 70 but I feel and behave like 17.
There were years in the beginning, in my 20’s and 30’s, where I turned down offers to act leading roles in theater plays and movies, and to produce my first play, just to keep my integrity, write my own plays, do everything “MY WAY”. The establishment offered me great things, but I knew that these paths would corrupt me. I fought against the natural craving for quick success, money, fame – which might have lead me to become a sell-out, in other words, lose my integrity.
I retained my aspiration to change the world and it is now as fierce as it was 50 years ago. I believe truth always prevails in the final outcome. I believe in the future of mankind.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It’s been tumultuous. Financially, emotionally, professionally. But it has been honest. And it was, most of the time, not cowardly. And it was my way. I had to undergo psychotherapy as a teenager, at the Anna Freud Clinic in London, in order to survive. Then an Adlerian therapy at age 41-42. I had a very rough, painful childhood, and hyperactive ADHD strains, so I struggled, always, yes. I suffered fierce antisemitism in England, in the 1960’s. And one of my causes in life is to tell the world the truth: Jesus was a Jewish Rabbi who preached love, not murder. Racism should disappear once and for all from the face of our earth. Love should, and will, win.
Recognition, in the various fields of art, arrived over the years: awards, financial rewards, praise. Never does recognition ever feel like the full one, which we artists always think/feel we deserve.
Thanks so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I wrote over 60 stage plays, and 10 screenplays. I wrote and directed my film “WILD” which my then-wife Nili Dotan, the mother of my only son Nimrod, produced. I have exhibited my paintings in numerous shows and exhibitions. I have thousands of my original paintings hanging in homes and businesses world-wide. I paint in a vast variety of styles. Young people, and some older ones too, go crazy about my work, and when they can afford it, they buy. But because young people usually find it hard to afford my work, I give them 15% off, for life, and it helps them become collectors. I paint simultaneously several paintings, each in a totally different style from the other. So, I am never bored for one minute of my life. My collectors are never bored either.
What sets me apart from others is that I do true to life portraits, but also crazy fairytale scenes in almost cartoon-like fun and childish naivety. But also “serious” landscapes, dramatic moments, expressionist, exploding pieces, and abstract ones too. I pay zero attention to the rules, although I excelled in the academia studies – exploring the theories of aesthetics and know all of them from Aristotle in Ancient Greece to the 20th century modern isms of all kinds.
My writing, my acting, and my painting come from within. It is visceral. And it is me. Like a fingerprint, it is unlike anyone else’s.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Age 12 is the first “positive” memory – my art teacher Mr. Rhymer, walked into the classroom and said “Have fun” and I did my first painting: a circus. And began to paint and make art.
I am a Don Quixote, on a journey to improve art and the world, and I’m not embarrassed to state this out loud, even at my age.
Contact Info:
- Email: gal.yoram@me.com
- Website: www.yoramgal.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yoram_gal/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yoramgalart/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Twitter?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu0lDB7v2QA
Image Credits
Yoram Gal
