Life and Career in Israel From 1990 To 2002
On 17 May 1990 the Afremov family entered Israel in Ben Gurion International Airport. They had to give up their Soviet citizenship in favor of Israeli. To this day, Leonid Afremov and his family are citizens of Israel only. The Afremovs had some family in Israel who had lived there since the 1970s and 1980s. Said family rented an apartment for them in Ramat-Gan and helped them to start their new life in Israel. A few weeks after moving to Israel, Leonid Afremov found a job in an advertisement agency making signs and posters. After working in an advertisement agency, he worked in a gallery shop where he learned to make frames, being introduced to the palette knife for the first time.
Because he was a recent Russian immigrant, the locals considered his work as having little value. Galleries took paintings for 50 shekels (15USD) and were reselling them for 500 to 5000 shekels. When Leonid confronted galleries about the extremely low prices, he always received the same answer: "you a Russian immigrant, you a new piece of junk, (sic) you have no choice." The galleries refused to sell his work for percentage commissions just because he was a Russian immigrant. He was only given the option of a pittance for each painting which took a day to make. Afremov felt like he was exploited and discriminated by the galleries and the Israeli society just like he was by the Soviet Government. He attemped to sell at street fairs and exhibitions in local social clubs. However, it was difficult because of the social stigma of Russian immigrants. His wife was forced to take a low-paying job in a textile factory.
During the early 1990s, Leonid Afremov was mainly working with watercolors and acrylic. He was experimenting very little with usage of the palette knife. He was painting what people were buying, with very little artistic freedom. In 1993, the Afremov family bought an apartment in Ashdod because it was a city of mainly Russian immigrants. Leonid Afremov hoped to avoid constant insults and discrimination by moving to a place where mainly Russians live. However, the city was primarily residential, without many opportunities, and Afremov had no choice but to keep dealing with the locals from the Tel Aviv area.
In 1994, out of extreme desperation, his 16-year-old son Dmitry tried to sell Leonid's paintings door to door around the neighborhood, This practice proved itself very effective, and Afremov suddenly started selling many pieces he painted and was getting slightly better money than from selling directly to galleries. Dmitry proved himself to be a good door-to-door salesman. He was selling Leonid's paintings in the new neighborhoods where recent Russian Immigrants were living. In 1995, Leonid acquired enough funds to open his own gallery and frame shop in Ashdod. The gallery was not popular among local Israelis; it was mainly visited by fellow Russian immigrants. The gallery was vandalized and broken into on several occasions. The local Israeli newspapers were refusing to publish advertisements for Afremov's Gallery, and he was mainly advertising via Russian immigrant press and radio station. However, artistic freedom could not be achieved completely.
During the late 1990s, Leonid was constantly holding exhibitions in Russian community centers around Israel; everywhere else the doors were closed because he was a Russian immigrant. During this time he already worked mainly with a palette knife and oils, he began establishing a unique artistic identity, however it was difficult to paint what he wanted because of the financial obligations and the picky customers. Around 1999, Leonid became friends with Russian-speaking Israeli jazz musician Leonid Ptashka, who inspired Afremov to paint a collection of portraits of popular jazz musicians and helped him secure a successful exhibition in the International Jazz Festival in Ashdod. Since then, Leonid Afremov has painted dozens of his favorite musicians.
In March 2001, Afremov's gallery was completely vandalized. Dozens of paintings were destroyed, the artistic equipment stolen and the facility turned into rubble. Then Leonid decided it was time to move somewhere else where he could be treated with deserved respect, eventually moving to the USA in January 2002.
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