Painterly Approach Israeli artist depicts life with family, and in the performing arts, through watercolors. SUZANNE CHESSLER Special to the Jewish News ir oram Gal likes to tell color- ful stories. The Israeli writes them into plays and films, and he paints them on paper. Gal soon will be visiting Michigan to show and sell stories expressed through watercolor projects corn- pleted over the past four months. He will take many to the Art & Apples Festival planned Sept. 10-12 in Rochester. He will bring others to a private sale scheduled Sept. 19 in a Huntington Woods home and a sec- ond public show and sale mounted Sept. 20 at Esther's Judaica and Gift World in West Bloomfield. The paintings depicting scenes from his personal life and theater projects will be joined with another "Old City Port"• Gal's Landscapes are popular Gal group. There will be landscapes with buyers. typical of popular places in Israel. "People often laugh when they see the scenes because there are reminders of all kinds of scenes from life," says Gal, 52, represented locally by Beverly Kent Goldenberg of Huntington Woods. "Visitors love to look at the big scenes, but they mostly buy the landscapes for their homes." The Six Gals is an example of a personal scene, and features Gal, his wife and young son sharing a meal with the artist's sister and two young nephews. The boys are sitting at a small table next to the adults' table in the artist's home, and the three adults are leaning toward the youngsters in a mixture of comedy and drama. Jacob° presents a very intense scene from a Gal play set in a ficti- tious Italian town and represents the artist's more grotesque works. The painter-playwright, in this rendering among 17 planned to give the direc- tor a concrete sense of his ideas, shows a terrorist holding a police officer's mother at knifepoint while an opposing terrorist holds his adversary's girlfriend at knifepoint. "I do very large paintings so I have to work on my knees with sup- plies on the floor," Gal explains. "This prevents the paint from drip- ping. I find I just take a brush and some watercolors and go wherever I want. I feel like a racing driver who's so used to his car that he just gets in and takes off." Gal started painting when he was 12 and worked with watercolors because they provided the simplest "The Six Gals" A family scene. medium for him to handle. He found a teacher he greatly admired and painted all through his army service and years as a theater student. He decided to major in theater because he thought painting studies would detract from the fun he had instinctively with the medium. After graduating from Tel Aviv University, Gal found work as an actor and began writing. As his career grew, he was cast in the United States and England while earn- ing most of his money by operating a touring children's theater in Israel. 'As I would play a role on stage, I would paint 40 or 80 paintings accompanying the process of the work on the character," explains Gal, who brought his artistry to New Venture Linda Ross, formerly of Royal Oak's Sybaris Gallery, again brings contemporary exhibits to local art scene. SUZANNE CHESSLER Special to the Jewish News L “Jacobo" scene: The painter uses his art to enhance the understanding of characters and sets. inda. Ross and Arlene Selik closed their Sybaris Gallery in Royal Oak about a year ago, but the work they started in 1989 is being revitalized with the launching of Ross' new business venture offering periodic exhibitions at various galleries in and around the Motor City. Linda Ross Contemporary/Art + Projects begins her exhibit initiatives with "Black & White" and "Tea Time," two group shows running Sept. 11-Oct. 9 at the Next Step Studio in Ferndale. While "Black & White" features sculpture, painting, photography, drawings and ceramics in the contrasting tones, "Tea Time" introduces nonfunctional teapot forms from Germany. Adding more subject matter will be a hybrid spoon series by Haley Bates and related new works by metalsmith June Schwarcz. "I started with artwork in black and white because I was seeing a lot in these colors and thought that the pieces were quite powerful," explains Ross, who knew she would continue working in the art field at the time Sybaris shut its doors. "The theme allowed me to include a number of artists, new and old. I also wanted to show teapots because we did well with them at our gallery." Diane Simpson, a Jewish sculptor based in Chicago, will be represented by two black and white works related to domestic aprons and other protective coverings, using her pieces as ways to reveal sociological roles. The white and