Colette Leinman is a multidisciplinary artist, poet and academic researcher based in Israel. Leinman is a keen observer of ‘the human experience’ and a dedicated researcher of cultural narratives. Over three decades she has been creating what she calls “a fusion of visual and verbal poetics” employing avant-garde experimentations involving themes of language, emotional experience and questions of identity. Her subject matter always has been deeply human-orientated, ranging from figurative nudes to primitive abstract expressionism.

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Leinman’s artistic discipline encompasses painting, drawing, installations, photography and video art, with a particular focus on mixed media on cardboard and oil on canvas. She is best known for her innovative use of color, particularly in employing shades of blue in her collections. Conventional techniques like oil painting are applied in an unconventional manner, characterized by meticulous layering, using extremely thin, lacquer-like layers that require extended drying times.

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As she moved deeper into abstraction, Leinman pierced the veil separating the inner and the outer dimensions. By successfully uniting spirit with matter, she joins rare creators like Mark Rothko and Cy Twombly, who in search of the clearest and purest forms of abstraction, created work ultimately reflecting humanity’s emotional experience. Thus, life itself.

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“Colette Leinman’s poetic and graphic work allows us to revive a capacity to re-create what is memorable, as well as what is similar and dissimilar, to fully realise that paradoxically, what is traumatic is to be found in what is alive and animated.” – Michel Gad Wolkowicz, professor of Psychopathology.

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A master colorist, her palette and brushwork have evolved into capturing facets of the soul, that the viewer takes in while also observing their own emotional shift. Through her work, we derive the true knowledge of our inner experience being detached from our outer sensory perception. Her portraits and abstract landscapes show a calculated stripping away of appearances to their bare minimum in order to fully capture the subject. Figures caught in the background look like symbols, letters or something in between denoting to graffiti as a collective universal language and a tool for free speech.

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Leinman is a strong believer in the importance of a shared narrative and as such has been a lifelong advocate for peace. Her bold use of color intensely engages with our subconscious, while the pure level of expression in her action painting breaks down all prejudice and signals a freedom to experience the emotions involved in the process of making the artwork. Perhaps Leinman creates this common ground because she refers to the human condition as a state of loneliness, so she synchronizes storylines within a chaotic reality.

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Leinman’s love for poetry is embedded in her work and showcased throughout her career. Her 2000 thesis titled “The deletion of the subject in René Magritte’s visual and verbal artwork” is a testament to her obsession with the invisible. Her work displays a certain voyerism, a study from a distance, as in Rembrandt’s 1654, A Woman Bathing in a Stream, or similar yet to the ‘unseen observer’ angles prominent in Toulouse-Lautrec’s work. What is human when it is not knowingly observed? How to represent the tangible yet invisible subconscious, breath and life itself?

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Born in France in 1949, Colette Leinman’s scholarly pursuits as a member of ADARR at Tel-Aviv University, delve into discourse analysis and rhetoric, particularly in the creation of a Collective Identity in the French Avant-Garde groups. Her spontaneous mark-making technique and seemingly automated line-work, is drawn with diligence and a clarity of purpose. The series “N’hommades”, captures emotions linked to territory and the transformation of space. Our shared sense of fragility concerning the human condition, and gratitude towards life.

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Our responsibility in recognizing the inside from the outside, and the ‘notion of passage’ through the space in between, is highlighted in Leinman’s work. In her two-part series “The Ark” she explores our inner and outer vessels, touching upon themes of mortality and environmental issues. The “Deep Blue Collection” and “The Taste of Blue” series are masterful examples of light and color gaining consciousness and generating genuine, emotional reactions. A familiar identity is infused into the textures, that our bodies are made of light and our minds can travel at enormous speeds.

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“Leinman's paintings create an immediate effect on the viewer and thus she shows how the color blue can affect our emotions and move between a feeling of peace and terror, between the familiar and the bizarre, between unity and loneliness and even often integrate them together.” Yifat- Sarah Pearl, curator of The Taste of Blue.

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Colette Leinman’s work bridges the earth and the sky, the visceral and the spiritual by uniting them in a common purpose: invite the viewer to experience self-discovery. Either expressed in cool blue confidence or in warm natural tones, the transcendental message remains, to observe and be conscious of one’s inner world as much as, and if not more than the outer world. Her unique approach coupled with her dedication to experimentation, distinguishes Colette Leinman in the contemporary art scene. She has participated in many international exhibitions and her works can be found in a multitude of prestigious public and private collections.

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Edited by Alexandra Kadinopoulou