Sister city spotlight: Karmiel promotes artistry and seeks attention
With push for Pittsburghers to appreciate what's occurring in Karmiel, there must be more done to 'support Israeli artists and galleries'
Clari Netzer hadn’t picked up a paintbrush in years. As a child, she enjoyed art but as a teenager and young adult she abandoned the practice; her parents discouraged painting as a profession. Netzer instead earned a communications degree. Time passed. She worked as an imports manager for a cosmetics company. Twenty years ago, however, she again reached for a brush.
“It was 2005 and my oldest son had just been recruited to the army,” Netzer, 64, said by phone from Karmiel, Israel. “There was this sudden realization that he would become a soldier.”
That moment influenced Netzer’s path, but the person who actually pushed her toward a canvas was her son, she said. “He was the wise one who gave me a wake-up call and said, ‘You know, Mom, when I was a little boy you always said you would become a famous artist. So start painting again.’”
Netzer heeded his message and bought supplies. Over the course of two years she refined her technique and developed a plan. Eventually, she left her job and pursued full-time painting.
“I had a lot of support from my family,” she said.
In 2007, Netzer started exhibiting her work. Since then, the award-winning painter has shown her colorful creations in France, Israel, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and across the United States.
Netzer’s painting, which focuses on her Israeli and Mexican identity, features a blend of abstraction and familiarity. Each piece has a geometric quality, but the binding message is a sense of “tikkun” or “repair,” she said.
The metaphors, and “heightened narrative inside each artwork,” are found within Netzer’s coats.
Her process begins, she said, by applying an initial layer of paint. She has to wait until it dries, “otherwise it will be a mess.”
New layers cover old ones, but earlier paint doesn’t disappear.
“The oil color remembers,” she said.
Black textured lines are applied. The lines cut through circles. New shapes emerge. Layer on top of layer gives each work “wings,” she said. “I want to set my painting free.”
Netzer’s technique takes each work from “chaos to harmony,” she continued. “I fight with my artwork — not only the geometric shapes — I really look to make order and harmony from the chaos and disorder.”
The artist, who has called Karmiel home since 1991, is familiar with Pittsburgh (the cities are connected through the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership2Gether Global Network). Before Oct. 7, 2023, and during nearly two years of continuous war, a stream of visiting Pittsburghers routinely passed through Karmiel and the Misgav region.
The war has taken its toll, Netzer said. Although her painting has reached new heights, “all the trauma and sadness is now imprinted in my work.”
Fellow Karmiel resident Ronit Itzikson Feldman opened her gallery, We Art, in March 2023. Since then, the gallery has closed three times due to Israel’s conflicts with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
“There was supposed to be this large group of teachers from Pittsburgh who were going to visit the gallery this summer, but because of the war they didn’t come,” Feldman said by phone from Karmiel.
Before the trip was postponed, educators spent a year preparing with Classrooms Without Borders.
Tsipy Gur, founder and executive director of the Pittsburgh-based organization, said she’s looking forward to introducing the Pittsburgh group to Feldman and We Art when the trip occurs.
We Art is a refuge, as art is essential to pushing through difficult periods, Gur said.
Karmiel is located fewer than 50 kilometers from the Lebanese border. Since Oct. 7, the northern Israeli city has been targeted by numerous rocket attacks.
It’s ironic that war has forced the gallery to close three times, Feldman noted. “This is a place for peace.”
Feldman touted the space’s offerings. Along with hosting various exhibitions, We Art features regular courses; each week, three or four classes introduce “different ideas and different kinds of art,” Feldman’s husband Ofir Feldman, 42, said. “One of the first people who did a full course was a Druze artist.”
We Art students range in age from about 16-90, Ronit Feldman, 43, said.
The gallery serves a “mixed” clientele of Jews, Christians, Muslims and Druze, she added. “We do a lot of jazz in the gallery. We do a lot of music. We do a lot of everything.”
In addition to furthering artistic opportunities in Karmiel, the gallery honors the memory of Amit Mann, an Israeli paramedic and paramedic course instructor who was murdered on Oct. 7 while saving lives in Kibbutz Be’eri.
“She was amazing,” Feldman said of Mann.
Pittsburghers should appreciate what’s transpiring in Karmiel, Gur said. There must be more done to “support Israeli artists and galleries.”
Feldman, whose familiarity with Pittsburgh stems from her daughter’s participation in the Diller Teen Fellows program and her niece’s role as a shinshin, said she appreciates the sentiments shared abroad.
She hopes Pittsburghers find their way to Karmiel and the gallery.
“These two years have been a nightmare. It’s a very difficult time to live in Israel,” she said. “The art is healing, and this is what is important to me.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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