Los Gatos Weekly-Times Photograph by Scott Lechner Pavel Tayber stands in front of his paintings on display at the Alef Bet Gallery in the Vasona Station Shopping Center. Well-known Ukraine artist shows in local gallery Pear tree served as first inspiration By Shari Kaplan For Pavel Tayber, the creative process imposes few limits--he paints in a variety of styles and themes and exhibits worldwide. Fifteen of his works are now on display at Alef Bet Judaica in Los Gatos. The paintings are flavored by several artistic movements, with themes varying from carefree to somber; color and texture vary accordingly. A native of Kharkov, Ukraine, in the former Soviet Union, Tayber is a graduate of the Kharkov Art Industrial College. He was a member of the Union of Artists of the Ukraine and has been included in Russian and Ukrainian art history textbooks. From the 1970s through the '90s, Tayber exhibited in one-man and group shows throughout Europe, Russia and the United States. Tayber says it was a fruit-laden pear tree near his family's house that first inspired him as a boy to see the beauty in things and feel the desire to capture that beauty on paper. "I remember how happily surprised I was, how that simple event filled me with joy. I believe that was the moment when, for the first time, I not only saw the world around me, but realized this world is colorful," he explains, with his daughter, Natalia, translating. Tayber's feelings became even stronger as an adult. "When I come to a clean canvas, I am excited. I feel aesthetic pleasure looking [at it]," he adds. "I am about to destroy this whiteness, to breathe a new life into it. I paint and feel how a fever pitch inside me grows, how ecstasy grips me while I see my ideas coming out on a canvas." In 1995, because of social and political unrest, Tayber packed up his paints and moved--with his wife and daughter--to Palo Alto. His California shows have included Danville, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Sacramento and now Los Gatos. Among his most unusual pieces is the whimsically colored "Going for a Walk." Children, dressed as though attending a masquerade, carouse as a man with a cane in his hand and a fool on his shoulders pulls them in a cart. The unusual scene becomes more so upon closer inspection, when written words emerge from the scenery. On the cart's wheel, for example, are written spring, summer, autumn and winter. "Evening" is a rather impressionistic piece in which children admire birds perched on telephone wire as a sunset lights the sky with orange, yellow, blue, mauve and white. Offering a touch of cubism with "Reminiscencia," Tayber dominates the canvas with block-like shapes, some of which contain images: a man and woman, a rooster, flowers, a fence and a wheel. Two paintings on another wall deal with the Holocaust. In "Boy with Bird," a somber work in dark brown, a downcast boy contemplates a chirping bird. No doubt the boy wishes he were as carefree as his feathered friend. "Memory" is an image collage dominated by two wide-eyed children, slashes of barbed wire, a red rose and a Star of David that appears to be falling--a fitting commentary on Adolf Hitler's religious persecutions and the horrors of war. Alef Bet is at 14103 Winchester Blvd. in the Vasona Station Center. For store hours, call 370-1818. [ Back to Contents Page | Los Gatos Weekly-Times Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, February 10, 1999. ©1999 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.