welcome to my site!
I have designed this site to allow you to see some of my work. I have also tried to explain the thinking behind the images. I do believe that the work should speak for itself, and hope it does; however, I thought you might find it interesting to better understand what goes on inside a painter's head. So enjoy the tour and please let me know your thoughts.
Aaron Menuhin
Worksabout me
I grew up about six kilometers away from where Van Gogh painted Starry Night in Saint Remy de Provence, half an hour from where Picasso made ink drawings of the bull fights, and an hour away from Cezanne's Sainte Victoire. My world has always been a reinterpretation of experience and vision, constantly comparing what they saw and what I could see. From that time onwards I have had to distance myself from those tremendous influences.
I believe in the infinite redemptive power of art. An image has the power to be sacred or sacrilegous, and painting should always be approached reverently.
I do not assume that people have unlimited time to look at my paintings, therefore it is my aim to create an image that grabs your attention and takes you somewhere you have never been before. Only if the painter is honest with himself can he create an image that will be honest with the viewer.
If every brush stroke is not deliberate and focused the viewer's attention will be lost, and the painter will have wasted his and our time. I think that, as in Architecture, Poetry and Music, the space created in the work of art is created within the viewer. In front of great paintings I feel as if I am leaning over a cliff.
If I could achieve one thing in painting it would be to create an image that transfers hope; that is life affirming.
My Biography
My first serious attempt at oil painting was made under the supervision of Peter Shattuck in his studio in Boulbon, France. His vision and dedication to the discipline of painting constitute my painterly foundations. It is only once I reached University that I took some drawing classes while studying at Boston University. In Boston I had the opportunity of studying with Hugh O'Donnell.
I then studied painting and drawing at the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris and frequented La Grande Chaumiere for one year before going to New York.
While in China studying Mandarin I studied calligraphy and classical Chinese painting. In Beijing I developed a taste for Shi Tao and Ba Da Shan Ren.
I made my way to the New York Studio School where I met and studied with Ophrah Shemesh who confirmed my belief in materials and introduced me to contemporary thinking about the picture plane and the language of painting.
Since then I have made an extensive study of the Michelangelo drawings in the Ashmolean museum in Oxford in order to familiarise myself with his approach to form and movement. Be that as it may, a painter's education is never finished and I keep learning everytime I set pencil or brush to paper.
I now live and work in the country-side near Leipzig, Germany, where I am enjoying a renewed appreciation of the German Romantics who frequented this area 150 years ago. I am currently working on a series of oil paintings inspired by a German officer's photography album of his service aboard a submarine hunter during the second world war.