Michael Eisemann "Composition VI" 1985 Lithograph

Composition VI
21.25x29.25 inches
Lithograph

Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1943, Michael Eisemann studied at the Academy of Art in Wiesbaden, West Germany. Upon his return to Israel he taught at the Art Institute in Bat Yam and later at the renowned Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem.

The art of Michael Eisemann is unique in that it offers the viewer not an inert object to be seen at a glance, but a document which is alive with the intricacies of the associations it weaves and suggests. Each work carries a central motif which is then developed and enlarged, the basic idea giving birth to satellite images which take on a life of their own while maintaining a resonant link to the main image. His work combines freely executed miniature versions of masterpieces by artists of the past and present. Through this process of selection, fragmentation and refinement, as well as their relationship with one another, these works assume a fresh identity. Renaissance portraits, Impressionist marinescapes, academic nudes and color filled works are variously arranged on the paper. Together they engage in a dialogue which underscores their collective abstract rhythms of light, color, texture and, above all, flattened, linear pattern. Eisemann’s calculated, almost mathematical approach to the scale, placement and rendering of each component - suggested by his use of graph paper - is tempered by playful, scattered counterpoints of colored brush strokes, stipples, doodles and caricatures, calligraphy, and even needlepoint designs. The varying influences of his Middle Eastern origins and his European education create an interesting blend of shape and color in his work.