Artist Zeev Engelmayer’s Daily Postcards bring solace with colorful realism

Every morning since October 7, noted cartoonist and humorous illustrator Zeev Engelmayer sits at the small kitchen table in his Tel Aviv apartment, under a picture window overlooking the Florentin neighborhood, and draws hostages, soldiers and mourners for his Daily Postcards.

He’s drawn the hostage Bibas family — mom Shiri and dad Yarden, redheaded preschooler Ariel and redheaded baby Kfir — during their horrifying abduction, and also as sweet oranges hanging off a branch.

He’s put octogenarian Yaffa Adar, a released hostage, in a heart-festooned golf cart, headed homeward with ballerinas at her side. He’s portrayed Mary Poppins magically bringing the hostages home by means of parasols and, in another drawing, child hostages ride a rainbow from Gaza to Tel Aviv.

And there are drawings dedicated to the daily reports of soldiers killed in Gaza.

Engelmayer’s A4-sized Daily Postcards embody the horror, fear, and sorrow of the last 100 days, after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel’s Gaza border communities, killing thousands, committing atrocities, and abducting hundreds.

But they also suggest another way of looking at the dark reality.

In fact, Engelmayer only drew in black and white for the first two weeks.

“I was in shock, and it wasn’t a deliberate decision [to only draw in monochrome tones] or to only draw by hand,” said Engelmayer, who usually draws on one of the two computers in his home studio, where bookshelves are stuffed with comic books and paraphernalia. But he was so horrified by the reality unfolding that he could only conceive of it in monochrome.

When he returned to color two weeks later, it was with a drawing of Kibbutz Be’eri as it appeared in the 1950s. Engelmayer realized that while color felt “too happy,” it also enabled him to show more emotions.

“I go through some kind of emotional experience as I sit there,” sometimes for hours, said Engelmayer. “It’s different from drawing on the computer. You see it differently when doing it by hand; you think about it as you do it.”

This is all very unusual for Engelmayer, a cynical, quirky humorist and activist known for appearing in public, often at protest, as his blowsy blonde comic book character, “Shoshke.”

Since October 7, however, Engelmayer has been trying to refrain from cynicism. He believes that what is needed now is TLC and a soft touch.

Each day he posts on Instagram drawings of hostages and their families, mourners, injured and fallen soldiers, or evacuees.

The public began responding immediately, sending him messages and requests to tell the stories of their loved ones.

“Now I have lists of names and stories,” said Engelmayer. “I speak on the phone to them and those conversations are important to me. It allows me to feel them more.”

Largely refraining from addressing terrible events head-on, such as the deaths of three 17-year-olds killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7 as they were fishing on Zikim Beach, or the deaths of three hostages — Alon Shamriz, Yotam Haim and Samar Talalka — who were accidentally killed by IDF soldiers in Gaza after they had escaped their Hamas captors, he instead creates images that aim to bring solace. The three young fishermen are depicted sitting on a sliver of a moon in the sky, fishing poles in hand. Shamriz, Haim and Talalka were drawn as if they had been rescued successfully.

Somehow Engelmayer’s hopeful versions work, despite the grief and pain. The posters provide a measure of ease and comfort, as Engelmayer has been told over and over.

“I’m not a great painter. I don’t draw anyone beautifully,” said Engelmayer. “I always tell the family that beforehand and they always tell me that it’s fine.”

And then, when the drawing is completed, he gives them a copy, scanned and printed at a nearby shop.

These days, there are lots of people seeking Engelmayer prints: a psychologist wants prints of his works to help her patients, schools want to hang poster versions in the hallways, TV stations and newspapers and museums are looking for his work.

At the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, where two Engelmayer exhibits were already on when the war began, a giant banner of his postcards was wrapped around the facade of the building. Engelmayer’s postcards are also found on side streets in Jaffa, in Mexico City, in Berlin, on the background set of the comedy show “Zehu Ze,” and more.

The artist has found it surprising that colored markers on A4 paper have drawn so much interest, including from those who aren’t among his usual audience.

“I always thought as an artist that I have to be free from being tied to a subject,” said Engelmayer. “I really love nonsense and a lot of what I do is nonsense,” he said, pointing at his work-filled studio. “Art offers an opportunity to think about far-flung thoughts, not reality. You don’t look at things straight on.”

But that is exactly what the pseudo-naive Daily Postcards have done for Engelmayer and his audience: offer another way of viewing the day’s difficult news.

“I’m in this boat in a roiling sea and there’s no other choice for me right now,” he said. “When you draw it and post it and then thousands of responses come in, it gives me the desire to draw something that offers optimism.”

That sense of optimism, along with his deep connection to the hostages, is apparent in his works, which Engelmayer said he hopes can help bring about a positive outcome because, “as an artist, what else would you want?”

And on the day he was visited by The Times of Israel, which happened to be his birthday, Engelmayer drew a postcard making two wishes — for the hostages to be freed, and for some new markers. He was expecting some friends to come over soon with packages of markers.

As for hostages, he’s still waiting, and hoping, and drawing.