Shimi Shaider (46) is an Israeli Painter and Social Artist residing in the beautiful town Kiryat Tivon, located in the hills of the Lower Galilee, between Haifa and Nazareth.

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As an autodidact by choice, Shimi was influenced by the Fauvists, Expressionists and the naive realms of his childhood in the urban settlement of Ramat Yishai.

Shimi met his passion for creation for the first time through his father, (a member of an old family of musicians from Europe) who painted and sculpted at home and thus opened for his little son a window to imagination, possibilities, dreams and utopies.

And since then, with curiosity and passion, Shimi seeks to decipher and explore relationships between people and places and a common language in a changing world by observing moments, landscapes, places and people. Mainly through painting, but also through writing and community initiatives.

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Born in 1977 and raised in a village in the Jezraeel Valley, Shimi graduated from the Kadouri Agricultural School in the Lower Galilee.

He grew up in a house of multicultural discourse, between East and West, with a father who came from Poland and a mother of Yemenite origin.

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As a cultural entrepreneur, Shimi operated 'Mumus', a hummus place and a teahouse, for 14 years. The place became a name by frequently encouraging and promoting spontaneous collaborations between neighbors, including the creation of civil community culture festivals (open source) - groundbreaking in cities and neighborhoods throughout Israel, changing the face of society. Regarding this activity, several academic research papers were conducted on the 'Mumus' and on Shimi as a social artist who believes in social art as an alternative to polarizing and divisive politics, and in art in general, as having a decisive role in leading the next era in our world.