Iris Rachel Goldberg was born in the USA, studied art at the Arts Student League in New York and currently lives in Tel Aviv and Yafo in Israel. She is an abstract painter, teacher and focusing oriented therapist (studied at NYU and Tel-Aviv University). In the past 20 years she has developed work that is abstract, informed by gestural drawing and inspired by abstract expressionism.
How did you get into art?
As long as I can remember myself, I used to visualize movement. As a child I would sit hours visualizing a choreography of dancers moving to the beat of the music. As the years went by, the dance became not only in the body, but also on paper and canvas. I was drawn into the infinite relationship between to drawing and movement, painting, and choreography.
How would you describe your style? What makes your work special?
My style is based on gestural drawing and inspired by abstract expressionism.
I think that the viewer experiencing my work can feel the physicality of the space. Thus, can experience the weight, balance, and forces in the painting, all in abstract terms and on a two-dimensional surface. It connects the viewer to his breath and to a very primal experience such as movement and mark making.
How do you go about developing your work?
I usually start from a charcoal drawing and then develop it into a painting. The work is immediate and direct, and I can go back and forth to it a few times. I look at the movement in nature, a dance and try the capture its essence. I often use oil bars which give me the opportunity to make marks and adjust the force of the line, but also make stains that can be diluted and almost appear as watercolor.
Who or what influences you?
My main influences are artists such as Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Richard Serra as well as more contemporary artists such as Jill Moser. Choreographers such as pina Bausch and Trisha Brown, as well as various Israeli choreographers, are also my source of inspiration.
Make us curious. What is planned next?
Currently I am planning a cooperation with the dance Mami Shimazaki. She is a Japanese dancer based in Israel. We are planning a workshop called "From the tangible to the infinite, in movement and abstraction". It is a workshop which combines movement abstract painting and drawing.
