Rámi Méir (Ра́ми Ме́ир; born Rahamim Nuvahovich Migirov, 11 April 19628 April 2023) was a Soviet-born Israeli visual artist, poet, singer, author of song lyrics, idioms and parables. Meir was the chairman of Russia's Mountain Jewish Union of Artists.

Early years 

Rami Meir was born into a Mountain Jewish family on 11 April 1962 in Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In the 1990s, he immigrated with his family to Israel where he started learning Hebrew and other ancient languages to be able to read religious texts in their original form. He thoroughly studied world religions including such books as Torah, the Quran, the Old and New Testaments, Kabbalah; he got acquainted with Hindu and Greek mythologies. He also wrote down  of different peoples as well as created parables, lyrics, and idioms of his own.

Painting 
Meir took up painting at Baku Art College while studying the engraving of artistic goods, jewellery, and metal. During his first year of studying, he was elected by students to the school's internal commission focused on selecting students' artworks for exhibitions. This new responsibility inspired Meir to try working in various artistic fields with the use of all kinds of techniques.

Styles and features in painting 
Meir created paintings in such styles as realism, symbolism, and impressionism. The plots of some of his pictures are realistic, but are set out by means of characters and symbols. That is the language Meir employed to share with audiences his life experience and accumulated knowledge about the world including the role of human beings in the universe.

Working in a figurative style of painting, he built up his own art language, which involved the use of a technique of 3D strokes based on classic methods in combination with glazing. The use of a "golden stroke", which Meir began each artwork with, reflects his creative process. When painting the artist tended to saturate the canvas with a range of bright colors, which both imparted a sense of positivity and filled his works with meaning. All of this leads some to consider Meir as one of the most prominent figures in contemporary art in Russia and Israel.

Jewish studies and culture are two of the major themes in his artwork. With the help of historical records, old postcards, and photos, he explored the industrial arts, everyday life, and traditional clothing of Mountain Jews from the Caucasus and South Caucasus regions in a unique series of paintings called Mountain Jews.

The creativity of Meir is not intuitive, it's the expression of author's rich knowledge acquired after many years of studying world religions, wisdom of great thinkers and religious figures, exploring the laws of the Universe as well as the laws and principles of the existence of any form of life. Meir's artworks reflect the knowledge empowered with earth's energy to the globe.

3D strokes 
An innovative approach in Meir's art was the hidden use of ЗD strokes when making paintings, the result of being educated as an engraver of artistic goods and jewellery.

Meir developed a unique technique of "golden strokes" and introduced it into his painting process. This technique represented a sort of performance art.

Golden stroke 
A key part of Meir's paintings is the way of "golden stroke founding" before beginning each one. The symbolism of the word "to found" captures the essence that the artist makes on canvas with the first stroke. According to Meir, the first stroke of each painting founds the content of the artwork, and "fills it with living spirit". A key part of the technique is that the "golden stroke" must be made by a woman.

Rami Meir Art Studio in Moscow 
Rami Meir had his own gallery at the Grand Furniture mall. The Rami Meir Art Studio offers a collection of artworks: more than 60 paintings, chased items, and sculptures made of wood and marble. There are about 180 canvases in total.

Music 
Rami Meir took a great interest in music during his school years when he was 11 years old: he started taking guitar and piano lessons at one of Baku's musical workshops. At the same age Rami Meir began writing poems and even then he made his first attempts to set them to music. He made his career as an author of song lyrics and singer in his later years.

Meir released two studio albums in collaboration with Igor Timakov, a musician and composer. They were working on their third record in 2020.

Special project: postcards with paintings 
At the end of 2019 Meir introduced a series of postcards with prints of his paintings. Some parts of them represent faces, handicrafts and clothing of Azerbaijan's Mountain Jews. The back side of the postcards contains fragments from parables and idioms by Meir. There are 21 postcards in the series. The author explained the message of it in the following way: "I wish people would send postcards all over again! And through these postcards I want to make people have warm feelings and understanding of one thing: the dear and loved should be appreciated during their lifetime. I could help them express that wonderful feeling that they have inside them."

Creativity

Reviews 
A presentation of Meir's Hudo Kumek! Tiro Kumek! (God speed you! Torah speed you!) album as well as an exhibition of his paintings took place at the Radisson Collection Hotel (Hotel Ukraina, Moscow) in 2019. The event was attended by Moscow's elite of Azerbaijani and Mountain Jewish ethnicities. Nisu Nisuev, an artist and member of the Moscow Union of Artists, thinks that "Rami Meir is a very multifarious person. A lot of his works have something in common with the style of the first impressionists. The artist skillfully conveys his wealth of life experience into the language of fine art. His Mountain Jews series of paintings is particularly impressive., a singer, mentioned: "Rami is a man of great talent. He is a poet, singer and artist. I'm inspired by everything he creates." Garri Kanaev, a music maker, stated: "All what we saw and listened to performed by our friend Rami Meir at Hotel Ukraina in Moscow is a real feast of creative work."

Goals of creativity 
On the goals of his creativity, Meir said, "I want to embellish the lives of others, to give them the light. I don't only mean the top layer of joy and impression out of nice image and well-done job, the main goal is very integral: to reflect how wonderful the world around us, how heavenly everything around us. It happens when a person comes up to the painting and sees that it lights up with a kind of internal warmth, which is put into the canvas by the artist. The energy of painting is the energy of artist. It makes you smile and feel the excitement of joy, it brings positive thoughts to your mind".

Lost works 
Meir served in the Soviet Army. Having found out his professional qualification, his ship commander introduced a new appointment called regimental engraver. In these two years of military service he created about 40 unique objects of art. Unfortunately, in 1983 the majority of those artworks were irretrievably lost during transport to the all-union exhibition held at the VDNH (Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy).

Personal life and death 
Rami Meir was married and had two children. They resided in Israel.

Meir died on 8 April 2023, at the age of 60.

Honours 
Meir was elected as the chairman of Russia's Mountain Jewish Union of Artists.

References

Sources 
 Major forms, themes and motifs of the creativity of Rami Meir by Natalia Ivanova, PhD in Political Science, Winner of Tvardovsky National Literary Award Новости «Основные направления, темы и мотивы творчества Rami Meir» от автора Rami Meir
 Review of artworks by Rami Meir (an Israeli artist of Russian origin) by Vera Pereyatenets, fine art expert (certified by the Ministry of culture of the Russian Federation with the right to report on works of painting, graphics and applied art (17–20 centuries, Russia) Новости «Рецензия на творчество Rami Meir искусствоведа-эксперта В. И. Переятенец» от автора Rami Meir

External links 
 Official website Rami Meir
 Official page Rami Meir. Instagram
 Official page Rami Meir. FaceBook
 Rami Meir: Bakuvians are multinational aristocrats of the Caucasus
 Rami Meir – art creator: I am proud of being from Baku!
 Russia’s Mountain Jewish Union of Artists has been established
 Rami Meir, Mountain Jewish music star, presents his new album
 Mountain Jews in the art of Rami Meir
 The Bakuvian Rami Meir: I wish people would send postcards all over again!
 İncəsənət xadimi Rami Meir: Fəxr edirəm ki, bakılıyam!

1962 births
2023 deaths
Azerbaijani emigrants to Israel
Israeli painters
Israeli people of Mountain Jewish descent
Artists from Baku