Israeli painter Avner Moriah began painting biblical scenes in 2006 to keep himself safe and deliver a message of hope. His works included hundreds of page-by-page paintings of the scenes in the book of Genesis.
As artist in residence at the Hillel Jewish Student Center in Tempe, Moriah on Monday gave his first talk on painting the Bible to a group of rabbis and ASU students working as Judaism teachers.
Moriah focused on the importance of using visuals to teach the Bible in his presentation, drawing from his own experiences.
The artist was painting Israeli landscapes when violence erupted in his home country in 2001. He often painted alone in the countryside. But that was dangerous, he said, so he changed his habits.
“I didn’t want to become a statistic,” Moriah said of the violence in Israel.
He took two commissions in 2001 to paint murals at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York and came to the United States, where he was inspired to continue his religious paintings after his wife was diagnosed with cancer that same year.
When her cancer went into remission, Moriah began work on a painting of the Haggadah, a Jewish religious text on the order of the Passover Seder.
“She overcame it, and that was my answer,” he said. “I wanted to do something that would elevate and would send a message of hope.”
Her cancer’s recurrence in 2006 again inspired him to create a painting of hope.
“She battled with the illness for almost two years where it could have gone either way, and she survived it,” he said. “So after about eight months of just taking care of her, I decided to start working on the book of Genesis with the idea of giving life again and rebirth.”
His hundreds of Genesis paintings took about two years to complete. Moriah incorporated the actual text of the Bible into some of the paintings, either as background or as part of the scene.
“I come from the artistic point of view,” he said. “I look at it as tales, not as a holy book that came to us from God.”
Marcie Lee, associate professor in ASU’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies and the director of the Hillel Teaching Scholars program, said Moriah is the third artist who has come to ASU to talk to students and community members about their religious work. He currently lives in Israel.
“Any time I brought a speaker in I wanted to bring a message to students that [the artist] is here to teach them,” Lee said. “I want the students to see that the artist is interested in them and their lives.”
Lee said she does this by allowing for a discussion about the artist’s work and making it clear that the students come first.
“It’s important for students to know that they have a right to talk to an important artist and not have to wait in a long line of donors,” she said.
Tourism sophomore Chelsey Keller teaches third grade at a Hebrew school in Scottsdale as part of the Hillel Teaching Scholars program, and said the opportunity to speak to Moriah and see his art will benefit her students.
“I liked the way he used stories from the Torah and expressed them with pictures,” she said. “It’s good for the kids to visualize it.”
Keller said it was interesting to see his paintings from the perspective of someone who did not go to school to paint religious works.
“He’s learned the whole entire Torah as he paints it; he knows the stories in depth,” she said.
Moriah said the text of the Bible is part of the art.
“It’s almost like a play,” he said to the students and rabbis gathered at the Hillel Jewish Student Center. “There is drama going on.”
Reach the reporter at ymgonzal@asu.edu
