“It feels like we’re living in an age of insanity, a time when it’s hard to communicate with people rationally about what’s happening. And art is a very strong tool to communicate those things,” says David Breuer-Weil.
The artist has now been invited by JNF to design a certificate for a forest the charity is planting in memory of the victims of the October 7 attacks.
More than 1,200 trees representing the victims will be planted in the south of Israel near Ashkelon, eight miles from the Gaza border, and all donors who give a minimum of £100 to the project will receive a copy of Breuer-Weil’s certificate.
JNF UK Memorial Forest certificate by David Breuer-Weil. This will be presented to donors who give a minimum of £100 towards the forest being planted in Israel in memory of victims of October 7 (Photo: JNF UK)
While the project was launched in February to coincide with Tu Bishvat, otherwise known as the Festival of Trees, and JNF’s Green Sunday appeal, the certificate is a recent addition.
“As an artist, I see this whole forest as a living artwork that I’m involved with, a new forest that represents all the lost souls,” he says. “It feels very good to be part of something that will grow into the future.”
He “immediately” had the idea of an image of trees with birds, nests and eggs, “obviously commemorating what happened, but also symbolic of the hope of new life and new beginnings”.
Sister by David Breuer-Weil - image shows the sculpture installed in Hanover Square, London (polished stainless steel, length 2.5 metres, image courtesy of Sam Roberts). This egg-shaped work is a symbol of regeneration; egg and nest forms appear in the JFN certificate
Breuer-Weil’s earlier works’ use of trees as symbols of human beings also made him well-suited to the job.
He says that he has always felt that nature is the “clearest expression of creation and God that we have. We see it every day and it’s a very enchanted thing.” He uses nature symbolically, as in his painting of cut-down trees, Forest, which features saplings growing on the stumps as a powerful image of what happened in the Holocaust – and a generation coming to life again afterwards.
“We do come to life again after that, continuously,” says the artist, who studied at Central Saint Martins and lives in Hampstead, north-west London. “I’m tapping into that a little bit with this imagery [for the certificate].”
Breuer-Weil has long depicted world events in his work, including several pieces based on the current situation in Israel.
During Covid he created The Coviad, an ambitious painting inspired by life during the pandemic and based on Homer’s Iliad.
When October 7 happened, within a month he had completed one of his “most ambitious” paintings yet, Morning. “There was so much pent-up feeling. The ideal way to express it was on a very large-scale painting, which I made on purpose exactly the same surface area as Picasso’s famous Guernica, painted in 1937 – deliberately to show that we’re living in an equivalent time to that,” he explains.
The World Divided - (196 x 290cm, acrylic on canvas, image courtesy of Sam Roberts) by David Breuer-Weil
That piece drew a strong reaction from many who felt it captured the feelings experienced by the Jewish community. “The moral outrage and also a sense of isolation,” says Breuer-Weil, pointing also to his The World Divided, “where it seems as if the whole world is dividing into camps of people who have completely different views with no communication between them”. Both pieces of art appeared in the same exhibition, This Time, in June.
Another of his works, Taken, was inspired by the hostages held in Gaza, with each painted world representing a person. The artwork called to mind a sculpture of his at Sha’are Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, which encapsulates the idea that if you save one life, you save the whole world.
Taken I (acrylic on canvas, 166 x 208cm, image courtesy of Sam Roberts) by David Breuer-Weil, with each world representing one of the hostages kidnapped into Gaza
The artist says his creations are “very instinctive” and are helpful on a personal level but also an important record of historical events. “I have all this pent-up emotion, and when I express it and it works visually, it’s a great feeling of release and catharsis. It almost feels like artists have a duty to mark historical moments because often that’s all that’s left in the future.” He points to his work Morning, which was created in reference to the morning of October 7, when the sun came up as usual, yet everything had changed.
Soul by David Breuer-Weil at Sha'are Tzedek Hospital in Israel (Photo: Breuer-Weil Studio)
However, Breuer-Weil is keen to stress that his work is not political and that they can be interpreted in different ways. “I’m not a political artist, I’m a human artist. It’s about memorialising history in all respects.”
For more information on the JNF fundraiser, click here
