JOIN USHaving stayed in India for around six years, Russia born Israeli painter Suzi Levi’s work was bound to be inspired by this spiritual country. Not one, but many of her paintings are on women from rural areas doing multi-tasking.
Of the six years in Delhi, Suzi studied art for two years at Academy of Fine Arts and Literature at the Siri Fort Institutional Area.
Recently, an exhibition of her paintings, A Woman’s Worth, was organised at India International Center. As the name suggests, the exhibition was a tribute to women and depicted many roles that Indian women perform. “I have been painting for a long time and India has certainly inspired my paintings,” she shares with Metrolife.
She loves Indian women wearing saris and other traditional clothes and that is evident in her paintings. Suzi has painted women doing their daily chores and has absorbed diverse influences from her international travel and too finds reflection in
her works.
In Delhi since 2006 mainly because of her husband Oved Levi who works in the aviation industry, Suzi has seen the City changing in terms of its infrastructure which she finds has gone better.
“Delhi is a big city with good restaurants and the lifestyle of the people here has only developed in the last few years. The City is more modern in many aspects including its bigger and better stores, malls, supermarkets and play areas for kids,” says Suzi.
Though Suzi has heard horror stories of foreigners not being treated very kindly by local miscreants, Suzi admits that “locals have been good with us and treat us with love and respect.”
However, whenever Suzi visits out of Delhi, she finds a big difference in both - the attitude of the people and air of the place. Both turn out to be cleaner and better than in Delhi. “I have visited many other places in India such as Mumbai, Goa, Shimla, Amritsar, Jaipur and Jodhpur and the big difference I have found is in the type of people, their physical appearance and their attitudes too. The food we got in other cities is less spicy than here and air cleaner,” she expresses.
Her half decade in the city is yet to have acclimatised Suzi to the food of Delhi, so she longs to go back to her native country, Russia. “The food is really good and tasty but I find it very spicy.
“Though my husband enjoys the food here, I miss my parents, friends and food.” Ask her if she would like to stay here forever, she replies, “I cannot stay here for always but I will be happy to come back for visits,” she sums up.