Michal Shmuel
Early Life
“The Land of Israel lives in me and comes out of me. Bright, shiny, sacred.”
Michal Shmuel is an Israeli artist whose variety of paintings expresses sentimentality, spirituality, and devotion while capturing the unique identity of a Jewish woman living in the Holy Land. Born in 1972, Michal lived the ordinary life of a young girl in Bnei Brak, studying at the Beit Yaakov Seminary in Tel Aviv and learning important life lessons from her parents, who both made Aliyah (immigrated) to Israel from Morocco.
From her mother, Michal realized her first inspirations. Her mother always ensured to fill their family home with an intoxicating tapestry of sensory delights. The aromas and delicacies of the European-French culture that flourished in Morocco followed Michall’s mother all the way to Israel when she immigrated at the age of 20. And so Michal absorbed the stories, foods, songs, and Jewish traditions that her mother had learned from her early life in Fez and the Jewish school in Tangier.
From her father, Michal inherited a deep love and dedication to Israel and its people, as well as a passion for learning across a wide range of fields, a passion that stayed with her throughout her life. Also born in Morocco, Michal’s father immigrated to Israel in 1952 at the age of nine. He was one in 250,000 Jews fleeing Morocco during the Great Immigration. Once in Israel, his family moved to Moshav Geffen in the Ella Valley, where he learned to cultivate and love the Land. His childhood was filled with absorption difficulties, acclimatization, and livelihood problems. For the first few years, he slept on a concrete floor in the hut housing his entire family. Despite these hardships, he persevered and went on to study mathematics and Talmud in Bar-Ilan University, becoming a Torah scholar and a scribe.
“Judaism flows in my blood, the love for the Torah, the Land, and the people of Israel, nature and simplicity.”
After he was married, Michal’s father left the moshav and moved to Bnei Brak with her mother and their soon-to-be-growing family. He studied at the Kollel Hazon Ish and Sofer Stam, but his love for the Land never diminished. Every year, he would visit for a few weeks to care for the beloved olive grove. The same olive grove that would later become an integral theme within Michal’s compositions.
While at the Beit Yaakov Seminary, Michal began “Shidduch” meetings with the Bnei Torah yeshiva students, where she would share her dreams of artistry with each young man. She would describe a future where she would become a painter, open her own gallery, and not even humor the men who did not show support or enthusiasm for her ambitions. Michal was dedicated to her dream and knew she was destined to become an artist even before her shidduch.
Leaving Law
“When the desire becomes clearer and stronger, distant dreams are getting closer.”
After her marriage, life happened. Painting continued as an anchor in Michal’s life, but with four kids, this chapter focused on motherhood. In this time frame, Michal worked as a teacher, a programmer, a saleswoman, an office manager, and a lawyer. Her law career soon became the central axis of her life. She developed skills such as attention to detail, punctuality, perseverance, and observing the bigger picture, which would prove essential for her career as an artist. During her years of interning and working as a lawyer, Michal always dreamed of returning to her canvases and paints. Her creative needs were bursting at the seams.
“Life for me is a journey and search for inner truth and its expression in my spiritual, emotional, and physical life as a Jew, woman, mother, and artist in the Land of Israel.”
At this time, her husband saw the need in Michal for spiritual fulfillment through art, so he surprised her by organizing a private meeting with her role model, Smadar Katz. As a leading promoter and teacher of figurative painting in Israel, it felt like a divine connection. Over 15 years, in different periods, Michal studied and practiced under Katz as her mentor, eventually leading Michal to her first major challenge as an art professional, setting up, together with Katz, a branch for art courses in Bnei Brak.
It was a deep and personal coaching process that ended with the decision to leave law. So Michal accepted the opportunity and invitation offered to her by Katz, eventually resulting in her independent courses. Again, she was deep in art, teaching, and creative matters. As opposed to being a lawyer, art brought inner peace, conveyed through her work.
Meeting Kira Wolf
“With Kira, I have become a professional artist in every sense.”
Michal continued to further her development in art, deepen her connection, and become more professional. She wanted to find her inner language along with the most advanced artistic tools and techniques.
That was when she met Kira Wolf, the Art Master. After many years working internationally as a professional artist, Wolf opened up her unique school for the teaching and mentoring of female ultra-Orthodox artists of the current generation. Wolf opened new horizons for Michal; she transmitted a deep understanding, a broad and multifaceted view, of art, design, control, color, and many spaces and dimensions. A critical, significant, deep process took place through her art. Her in-depth artistic training allowed new horizons to open up to Michal and, through that, a deeper spiritual connection.
The Jewish Connection
“I am inspired by the beauty of creation, the beauty inherent both in breathtaking landscapes and exotic sights as well as in everyday nature
around us.”
Michal’s dynamic compositions are painted with intention. She considers the person who will buy the work and paints it in their honor with precision, perfection, and patience. She wants to bring aesthetics, peace, and tranquility to the walls of people and their homes and feels that making this come true through her art is the most heartfelt gift she could ask for.
Michal primarily focuses on Israel and Jewish subject matter as it brings out a more profound affinity to her work and her spirituality. She often refers to Biblical stories, the people of Bnei Brak, Hassidic sentimentalities, and especially the olive trees from her father’s grove. Growing up in the Land of Israel, it remains a prominent figure in her life, imagination, and body of work. The Land lives within her and flows out of her. Bright, shiny, sacred.
The Era of Michal Shmuel
Today Michal is painting alongside Wolf with Studio Kli on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Surrounded by the ancient Land, inspired women, and a great teacher, the studio is a sanctuary of introspection. Michal’s art invites the viewer to uncover a path of deeper understanding and faith. The artist has been honored by Leket Israel. Her art is exhibited in galleries in Israel and the US and beautifully decorating many homes around the world.
