Roi M.

Where are you from?

I am 42yrs old and made aliya from Ethiopia. I walked out of Ethiopia with my brothers and cousins and parents. We spent a year in a camp in Sudan. Then we made aliya in 1984 in Operation Moshe from Sudan. I dropped out of school when I was 14. At one point I was accepted to Project Hila where I had 4hrs a day of math and Hebrew.

What is your background?

When I was 16, I was hospitalized. I was not able to do the army. I worked in a factory in Afula in a project of Tadiran doing parts for cars. My father was then hurt in that huge terror attack in Afula in 2003 in the mall so we moved to Petach Tikvah.

What is your aim when you paint?

Art can take you into many directions – the color lets the imagination do what it wants. I like to be exact in my art. When I focus on color and shapes, I hope the people looking at my paintings feel my feeling about the subject and can understand me and my personal sense of the connections in the painting. This is my goal for my art. And that I can express myself and always be learning.

What drew you to creating art?

When I was 28yrs old, I started to pursue art. Nature and landscapes drew me to doing art. I love that I am always learning new things through art. I mainly work in oil and acrylic and also do mosaics.
Some years ago, I came here, to Beit hayozter and live in their hostel with 2 others. Now I do art every day. I love doing landscapes and working with nature. Oil is best for that. Its rich and brilliant. It shines. With oil I can portray nature.