Her paintings speak for her

OLGA LIVSHIN

Melenie Fleischer doesn't like to talk about herself or her paintings. She paints. The paintings speak for her. On Feb. 12, Fleischer's solo show, Good Mourning Flowers, opened in the Sidney and Gertrude Zack Gallery at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver.

The artist has dedicated the show to her family. A beautiful wife and the proud mother of a 17-year-old son, she was also a loving daughter until her parents passed away; first her mother, then, a few years later, her father. The show is a memorial to them, as many pieces were done while Fleischer was in mourning.

"From my mother's earlier death to the struggle of accepting and embracing my father's journey through Alzheimer's disease until he died, my healing process began," she said. "After my parents passed away, each time a bouquet of flowers arrived at my home I would paint them on paper or canvas. They were my good 'mourning' flowers."

Surprisingly, the show is not sad or depressing. Openhearted and sensual, the paintings burst with colors and shapes. Defying human grief, they celebrate life. Birth and death are reflected on the same canvases: the death of anguish and the birth of beauty.

"When I paint, I go to some place else. I'm transposed," the artist confessed. "Everybody I love is with me when I paint." She keeps a constant dialogue with her art, where music and dance play roles as important as paints and brushes. "A dance of creation," she calls it.

Music surrounds Fleischer, saturating her images and nourishing her soul. Her husband, Eric Wilson, is a world-class cellist and a founding member of the Emerson String Quartet. Her mother sang professionally and might have gone to Hollywood had she not married. The artist herself loves listening to classical music. It is no surprise then that many of her paintings have musical connotations.

During the vernissage, violinist Llowyn Ball strolled among the guests, entertaining them with lovely Jewish melodies. His stand with the music sheets was in front of the painting called "The Violinist," although the musician seemed unaware of the coincidence. The violin's neck on the painting curled coquettishly, happy to be in proximity to the real thing. The strands of music floated around the gallery, causing smiles and lifting spirits. A girl on the painting also grinned at the handsome musician.

A fiddler is a part of another painting, "The Jewish Bride," which Fleischer painted for her parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Her mother was already ill and although the bride's smile is radiant with happiness, the groom in his cowboy hat is serious, even worried. Perhaps he anticipates the pain ahead?

Many paintings have a short text attached. Fleischer said that these texts have come either from the numerous condolence cards she received in her bereavement or from her mother's old letters. The text for "Coffee Sonata" whispers: protect yourself in your grief; sip coffee. And the painting is actually reminiscent of Latin American motifs, suggesting the bitter taste of freshly brewed coffee on your tongue. Grab a mug, luxuriate in the pervasive aroma of brown beans, sip your coffee and forget your troubles, at least for a little while.

Unlike the sharp sonata of coffee, with its prevalent vermilion and blue, the painting beside it, "Girl with Black and White Tree," is starkly black-and-white. Almost. It is not a sonata but rather a percussion composition, graphic and introspective. The young woman's huge eyes regard us with sadness and surprise. She resembles the artist so much that it must be a self-portrait.

And then there are flowers, the bringers of joy and the vehicles of compassion. An explosion of petals swirls on the walls of the gallery, a polychromatic dance of bouquets, with intertwined gladness and sorrow as the waltzing partners. Gold and bronze hues triumph in "Sunflowers." The yellow roses frolic like a polka pizzicato in "Yellow Roses," their sunny petals rejoicing in caressing a naked female body. Every angle is sharp and defined and there are no half-tones anywhere.

The title piece, "Good Mourning Flowers," highlights mourning as a new beginning. Pink, red and lilac delight the eyes, promising joy to come. Harmony reigns in the image, while another floral painting, "White Chrysanthemum," inspires whimsical thoughts of magic and enchanted gardens, the gardens you want to be in with your sweetheart. "Life is beautiful, sweet, exciting, emotional," reads part of the the inscription.

"Bird of Paradise" is a journey down memory lane, a nod to the past. When Fleischer was a young girl, her parents owned an oriental lamp with two figures, a girl and a boy. That mysterious Japanese girl from the lamp is looking at us from the painting, coming alive out of the darkness of years into the light. That lamp was one of the few possessions her parents managed to save when their house was destroyed by fire.

For the artist, the entire exhibition seemed to be a road towards healing. Opening up her soul while she was still grieving must have required lots of courage and determination. Those deep feelings are represented in the centerpiece of the show, "You Are My Kaddish / Shema Is You." Unlike the paintings on the walls, this sculptural, three-dimensional opus is made of specially processed paper. Covered with rainbow Hebrew letters of the prayers, Kaddish on the outside, Shema in the inside, it soars jubilantly in the middle of the gallery, beneath the skylights, in a place of honor, commanding everyone's attention, as a prayer should.

Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer.

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