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A Fresh Take on Original Painting in the Urban Landscape
Israeli artist David Gerstein is widely known for his vibrant outdoor sculptures and kinetic wall pieces, but his recent return to painting marks a profound and personal shift. In a captivating series of original paintings, Gerstein turns his attention to a quiet yet powerful motif: the reflective windshield of a car. Each original painting in this series is a window, both literal and metaphorical, into the fleeting beauty of everyday urban life.
This new body of work reinforces Gerstein’s longstanding role as a pioneer of contemporary painting. With bold brushstrokes, layered reflections, and a surprisingly emotional palette, the series explores the way light, movement, and memory are captured in passing glances through car windows. More than just studies of vehicles, these are portraits of urban stillness and human presence, without ever showing a face.
Reflections in Motion: A Signature Series of Original Paintings
What makes this contemporary painting series so compelling is Gerstein’s ability to merge technical precision with expressive abstraction. The cars he paints are stationary, yet the world reflected in their glass is full of movement, trees swaying, buildings stretching upward, clouds drifting past. Viewers are drawn into the layered complexity of the windshield, where exterior surroundings and interior hints overlap, blur, and shimmer.
In each original painting, Gerstein manages to evoke a sense of quiet introspection. It’s an invitation to pause and reflect, to see the beauty in ordinary moments. This is where David Gerstein’s talent shines. He transforms a common urban object into a meditative landscape.
Anonymous Cities: Universal Reflections in Original Paintings
One of the most intriguing aspects of Gerstein’s car series is the anonymity of place. The reflections in the windshields depict cityscapes that are unmistakably European. Narrow alleys, stone facades, hints of wrought iron balconies. They are obvious, but also largely unidentifiable. These urban backdrops are intentionally generalized, allowing the viewer to project their own memories or associations onto the scene. Only in one original painting, Reflection in the Window 1, is there a street sign that reveals the location: Paris. In all the others, the cities remain nameless, almost dreamlike.
This ambiguity enhances the emotional universality of the series. The reflections are not tied to a specific moment or geography; rather, they represent a shared human experience. An experience of walking through unfamiliar streets, of pausing to observe beauty in unexpected places. In this way, Gerstein’s contemporary painting practice becomes less about documenting and more about evoking, turning each original painting into a quiet meditation on presence, movement, and memory.
From Sculpture to Canvas: A Return to Contemporary Painting
For decades, Gerstein has been celebrated for his colorful wall sculptures made from laser-cut metal. But before all of that, he was a painter. David Gerstein was trained in classical painting techniques in Paris, London, and New York, where he took on a love for figurative and expressionist art. This new series of original paintings signals a return to those roots, though now through the lens of a lifetime of experience and experimentation.
Transitioning back from 3D to 2D doesn’t limit Gerstein; it liberates him. His canvases are large and small, the brushwork confident, and the compositions layered with intention. The same energy that animates his sculptures pulses through these contemporary paintings, but here the emotion is more intimate, the storytelling more subtle.
The Car as a Contemporary Canvas
Gerstein’s use of the car windshield as a central visual device is not accidental. Much like the balconies that defined his earlier paintings of Tel Aviv, the car is a personal space within the public realm. It’s where we observe the world, listen to music, have private conversations, or sit quietly at a red light. His original paintings turn the car into a vessel of reflection. Both literal and emotional.
These aren’t idealized or glamorized vehicles; they are everyday cars parked along the street, surrounded by the textures of city life. And yet, through David Gerstein’s lens, they become poetic, filled with narrative and light.
A Reflective Journey Through Contemporary Painting
David Gerstein’s car series is a return to painting. It is also a profound exploration of how we experience space, time, and memory in the modern city. These original paintings offer a new way to see what we usually overlook. By capturing reflections in windshields, Gerstein reflects something even more universal: our desire to pause, observe, and find meaning in movement.
This collection affirms his place not only as a sculptor but as a master of contemporary painting, capable of reinventing his artistic voice while staying true to his creative essence. Each original painting in this series is a journey into the world and into the self.
See the full collection here.
