Member Gallery: Nava Attia-Benoit
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March Bloom |
Christina #7 |
Artist's Statement
Many people go through a mid-life crisis. Mine happened to be quite a significant step, both geographically and professionally. Born in Jerusalem, a city known for its non-bohemian residents, I had always followed the practical path in life , and got bachelor degrees in Biology and Computer Engineering. At the age of 39, after years of working as a CAD engineer at Intel Israel, I quit my job and moved half way across the world.
While coping with the challenges of acculturation, I took a drawing class that made me decide to give myself the gift of fulfilling a long-forgotten dream: creating art. 3 years later, I took Mike Bailey’s Watercolor Beyond The Obvious class; an eye-opening experience that gave me a huge leap forward, and encouraged me to further explore painting. Already addicted to drawing, I found myself falling in love with watercolor. Nothing compares to touching the brush to paper and letting the paint reveal its magic.
I've always been fascinated by people and their stories, so figures and portraits were the natural choice for my subject matter. My main intent - and greatest challenge - is to capture the essence of the story, and make the viewer stop for a moment, get involved.
Many things have been said in praise of creating. Art is a way of expressing myself. As an immigrant, it also enables me to have people pay attention to what I have to say, rather than to my accent.In parallel with getting more seriously into painting, I became more involved with SCVWS, which gave me a great sense of belonging. I volunteered to take on the Membership duties, and 15 months later, was voted the leader of SCVWS, a position that was an exciting and learning experience until I retired on July 2008.
While I am still involved as Leader Emeritus, I can now go back to pursuing my own art.