Michael Yechilovitch

The Arad Museum is displaying "Transitions", a new exhibition of two artists who immigrated from the Former USSR and are living today in Arad. Michael Yechilovitch and Ilya Zlotnikov came to Israel a few years ago and decided to make Arad their home. Their paintings are being exhibited all over Israel as well as abroad.

Michael Yechilovitch was born in Moscow on 1956. He was deeply inspired by his grandfather, Meir Exelrod, a famous Jewish painter. Meir was his first art tutor and, had a huge influence on his decision to become a professional painter. When grandfather died, in 1970, he continued his art studies and took the theater-painting course.

In 1991 he immigrated to Israel and started to deal with the problems of an immigrant-artist. In order to overcome the estrangement between Olim artists and Veteran-Israelis, he established the Mesila group, a group of Olim artists.

 The group had exhibitions in Israel, Germany, Italy and the USA.

"The holidays were over and the ordinary days had began my attitude towards what was occurring around me and my inner site was changing" says Michael "I wanted to paint the state of the soul".

Ilya Zlotnikov

Moving to Arad of 1997 changed his creations tremendously. The young city at the middle of the desert helped him express human feelings of loneliness, fear of the future and searching for harmony with the world. The common looks of the city architecture painted in desert monochrome paints (yellow, brown) were drawn into his masterpieces.

All the paintings exhibited in the Arad local museum were created in Arad.

Ilya Zlotbikov was born in Simprolop, started studying art at the age of 14 and finished his studies at the Designing Constitute in Chrakov.

Ilya started painting as a hobby that developed into a profession after coming to Israel at 1991. His first exhibition was at the Arad Museum at 1992. Ilya already had two exhibitions abroad.
The subjects of Ilya's creations are drawn mainly from his surroundings - places and views in Israel, problems that concern Olim and traditional subjects like model and nature paintings. His techniques vary from scratching, to quarrel and pastel. The creations in the Transitions exhibition are all oil on canvas. The transition is also a change in the focus of the artistic creation.
Zlotnikov is a realistic painter "My realistic sight of the world is not a copy of the reality. It goes through the past and emotion filters", he says.

Both artists are relatively new to the Israeli reality and went through a massive change in their personal life that was expressed in their artistic work. This is only an example of the great artistic treasure brought to Arad by its new citizens.

Shvat 5760 - January 2000