During the past 18 months, Israeli painter Uri Ely has produced a cycle of 60 paintings depicting the Creation.
At its birth, he says, the world was so pristine and beautiful, and since then we have polluted and degraded it so badly, that he wishes to recreate in his paintings the "light, cleanliness and purity", i.e. the paradise, which is no longer to be found upon this earth.
When the 37-year-old artist began to paint 16 years ago, it was primarily the spiritual world, the hidden secrets of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, the holy scriptures and meditation, that interested and inspired him.
For the viewer, there are three different ways of becoming acquainted with his paintings: looking at them, understanding them, and feeling them. "All of my paintings I first saw in my mind in meditation. After meditating, I feel the energy and I try not to forget what I have seen. I usually begin to paint immediately after meditating, so that I can transform the energy and what I have seen into the painting," says Uri Ely as he explains his way of creating a painting.
When the viewer, for instance, tries to understand his painting entitled "Meditation", his eye will inevitably travel towards the light. The deep green in the lower third of the picture, which the eye perceives first, opens the heart chakra, relaxes the body, and allows his thoughts to come to a rest. The equally intense royal blue, which is the second color the eye percieves, fosters an inner readiness to communicate with another world: the spiritual one. The eye travels over the color violet - also the color of the crown chakra - towards pure light. The viewer need only let his eye follow the path over which it is naturally inclined to go.
The picture entitled "Meditation", says Ely, is meant to help the viewer imagine himself in a so-called "alpha-state". By this the painter means a state in which the viewer is receptive to visions. "Through the alpha-state people can learn to understand that there is a part of their brains which they can use to give visual form to their own futures. People should know that they can use vision to influence and create their own futures by making contact with their subconscious mind through meditation. They should realize that the brain is a powerful weapon, that they can form and change the world with their thoughts, with the visualization of their dreams, and with their language."
Uri Ely, however, is not just a painter. From birth he has had the ability to heal people or to exert a positive influence on the healing process with the strength of his own energy. His pictures, says the painter, could likewise support the healing process. "I paint pictures which, simply by viewing them, can set the healing process in motion in people." He would wish, therefore, that as many people as possible "spend time" with his pictures. He believes that meditation projects the individual's energy onto the paintings, and that the paintings, for their part, give energy back. "Thus, an exchange of energy can take place if people learn how to make themselves receptive to the energy in these pictures."
For six years he has incorporated color therapy into his painting. "Each body part has a different vibration, as does each color," he explains, "and when parts of our body are sick and need care, we give it the color which the ailing body part needs in order to get well."
For Uri Ely, therefore, the color of our clothing and the interior decoration of our homes is also important, for naturally the pictures in our homes influence our mood and our health through the energy which is transported by their colors.
In the sixteen years during which he worked as a healer, Uri Ely has discovered that the strongest healing occurs by means of colors: "From the colors that a person chooses, and from the color combinations he selects, I can tell you his life story. In each period of life a person chooses different colors, and it is through these colors that his problems may be defined. All of this comes from his subconscious mind into the day-to-day reality -- the conscious life. From his choice of colors, I can determine the area of his life in which this person is blocading himself."
Using the vibration of colors, these channels could be opened once again and people could learn to heal themselves by consciously choosing their colors, says Uri Ely. The painter and healer believes that the consciousness of humanity is suffering from the fact that people no longer know themselves. "Everyone has an inner kernel, but only a small number of people give any thought to how this inner kernel looks and what one could achieve with this kernel, on this earth, in this life." Too many people place their hopes on a paradise in the hereafter: "I am convinced that paradise is here on earth and that one should make an effort to realize it here and now, through kindness, understanding, and simply through universal love."
If people learn once again not only to take, but also to give, says Ely, then a better energy would arise, a better vibration. "Sharing with other people, that is the secret of life, and I think that this is what people must do," he insists firmly, "what we must learn to do once again."
People today, says the Israeli, only ask themselved, "What can I do?" They forget to learn and to study what they can not do, and he explains what he means by this using two of his paintings as examples:
"Before the Storm":
"Animals feel instinctively when danger threatens. They become nervous, begin to run. They feel it acutely. People too feel instinctively today that the world is changing, that "a storm is coming." They are getting nervous and do not know why; they no longer understand what is hapening. When people feel like this, their feelings influence their immediate environment and themselves. The storm is coming either way. Still the question remains, will people prevail over the storm in a positive sense or in some other sense. People themselves have the power right in their hands to exert a positive influence on the "storm" that is coming and to prevail over it with the power of their thoughts. People must learn to understand how to unite the material world with the spiritual one.
In his second example, Uri Ely uses his picture "Meteor - Creation from the Explosion":
"Men fight wars, lay waste to the rain forest, destroy the ozone. People do what they know how to do. When people know what they can not do, then they know what they can do. If not, then the universe will be destroyed and annihilated."
The Museum of European Art wishes to introduce the talented Israeli artist to the American public, and corporate donors are currently sought to sponsor a comprehensive exhibiton of Uri Ely's unique paintings in New York City and Washington, D.C. However, already now two original paintings by Uri Ely are on display at the Museum of European Art in Clarence, New York.
Copyright 1999 Museum of European Art