Ayala Serfaty is represented in New York by Maison Gerard



Since the 1990s’ Ayala Serfaty has forged a unique path in the world of contemporary design, creating and crafting conceptual lights and furniture. Her work has been described by scholars as ‘multi-disciplinary,’ as ‘fusion of art, craft, and design,’ as defusing the line between the natural and the abstract. Her approach focuses on ancient traditions, striving to revive their spirit and energies in unorthodox, unexpected, and innovative manner. 

Ayala Serfaty became known for her SOMA, handcrafted sculptural lights named after a Greek term that describes the human body. She chose this name to enlighten the poetic qualities of her objects, which largely reveal the levels of abstractions that nature can project. In her recent Series, RAPA, she creates furniture made of handmade textile, crafting felt out of fibers carefully gathered by her from all over the world. RAPA is not a departure, but rather reconnecting with textile, the materiality that came to inform her work from its very beginning.

Ayala Serfaty was born in Tel Aviv, in 1962. She studied Fine Arts at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, and after graduating from the Middlesex Polytechnic in London, she settled in Tel Aviv, where she has lived and worked ever since. In 1996 she co-founded Aqua Creations Lighting and Furniture Atelier, acting as the atelier’s designer and creative director, until establishing her own art studio. For almost thirty years Ayala Serfaty has exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide.

Ayala Serfaty’s work was recently acquired by Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris and is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, the Mint Museum, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Corning Museum of Glass, and Indianapolis Museum of Art Her solo shows were held at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and Sculpture Museum Beelden Aan Zee, Den Haag. She participated in group shows in such museums as London Design Museum, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Cooper Hewitt Museum, Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design in Nuremberg, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, to name a few.





Studio Personnel
Ayala Serfaty works with trained artisans, with whom she developed a lifelong collaboration.

Eytan Hall, Anna Gautier, Tatyana Osharov, Avi Saina & Olesya Yolkin are all working in house, taking part in the creation of Ayala Serfaty’s studio pieces.

All images featured on this website were taken by Albi Serfaty, Elad Sarig, Yuli Serfaty or offered by museums.

Museum Collections



Year Museum Piece Type
2001 Tel Aviv Museum of Art Aqua Regia, 1996 Acquisition
2008 Museum of Arts and Design Webs, June 2008 Commission
2011 Holon Design Museum Primo Bianco, 2010 Acquisition
2012 The Metropolitan Museum of Art Wild, March 2009 Acquisition
2012 Mint Museum Joy of Transition, 2012 Commission
2012 Boston Museum of Fine Arts Andrea’s Trust, 2006 Acquisition
2013 Houston Museum of Fine Arts Once, May 2006 Acquisition
2015 Corning Museum of Glass Soma, 2015 Commission
2015 Indianapolis Museum of Art Memory, 2014 Acquisition
2021 Museum Paris Musée des Arts Décoratifs Sangha, 2021 Acquisition



Education

1984 Fine Arts Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem
1987 Fine Arts Middlesex Polytechnic, London



Listed Solo Exhibitions


Year Gallery
1994

Artifact Gallery, Tel Aviv, Sculptural Furniture

1997

Gallery Inter Nos, Milan, Aqua Creations

1998

Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, Strasbourg Antoine Cicero & Ayala Serfaty une dialogue

1998

Gallery Blanchart, Milan, Ayala Serfaty

2000

Meta Gallery, Milan, Evolution 19

2007

Lorenzelli Arte, Milan, Soma: The Beauty of the Moon through Clouds

2008

Tel Aviv Museum of Art - Soma light installation

2009

Sculpture Museum Beelden Aan Zee, Den Haag, the Netherlands, Soma Light Installation

2009

Cristina Grajales Gallery, Design Miami

2011

Cristina Grajales Gallery, New York, In Vein




Listed Group Exhibitions


Year Gallery
1991 Artifact Gallery, Tel Aviv, The Next Generation
1994 Janco Dada Museum, Ein-Hod, Israel, Object Object: A Dialogue between Art and Design
1995 Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen, Germany, Design-Time
1996 Übersee Museum, Bremen, Germany, Design im Wandel
2002 Centre Pompidou, Paris, Carrefour de la Création
2002 The Rockland Center for the Arts, New York, Design show
2003 Neues Museum Nürnberg, Nuremberg, Design Museums of the World
2003 Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Nature Highly Artificial
2004 Dot Fifty One Gallery, Miami, Red, White and Blue
2005 Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Collect
2005 Triennale, Milan, Promisedesign, New Design from Israel
2006 Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, New York Solos: Design from Israel
2006 VIA Gallery, Paris, Surfaces
2010 London Design Museum, Brit Insurance Design Awards 2010
2010 Chelouche Gallery for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv, Re-Location
2011 Design Museum Holon, Israel, New Olds: Design between Tradition and Innovation
2012 Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Herzliya, Israel, Cabinets of Wonders
2013 Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, Woven Consciousness
2014 Design Museum Holon, Holon, Israel, Gathering
2015 Trapholt Museum of Modern Art & Design, Denmark, Fetishism
2017 Jewish Museum Hohenems, Austria, The Feminine Side of God
2020 Jewish Museum Frankfurt, Germany, The Feminine Side of God
2020 Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Biennale of Crafts & Design
2022 Carpenters Workshop Gallery NY, The Female Voice in Modern Design, 1950-2000
2009-22 Yearly presentations at international Design-Art fairs such as Art Basel, Salon of Art & Design NY, Collective NY, Nomad Monaco, PAD Raris




Awards & Scholariships


1985

America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship

2006

Israel Minister of Education and Culture’s annual Design Award




Bibliography


Publication Title
Hadashot (October 3, 1993)

Aryeh Berkovitz, “Nighties News”

H’ir (December 12, 1995)

Esther Zandberg, “A Woman’s World”

I.D. Magazine (January-February, 1998), 77

Paola Antonelli, “Making Waves”

The New York Times (April 1, 1999), 56

Deborah Sontag, “Where the Fish Watch you Eat”

BVD (May 2003): 94-97

Dov Kazenelson, “Under the Water”

Design Museums of the World (2004), 206-211.

Meira Yagid-Haimovici

1000 Lights vol II (New York: Taschen, 2005): 446-9

Charlotte and Peter Fiell, eds.

Tel Aviv Museum of Art catalogue for Soma Light Installation, 2008

Meira Yagid-Haimovici, “It is the Light”

Haaretz, Nov. 2008

Yuval Sa’ar, “Take your Sleeping Bad and spend the Night at the Museum”

Ayala Serfaty, In Vein (New York: Cristina Grajales Gallery, 2011)

Sarit Shapira, “Dewdrops of Light: On Ayala Serfaty’s Light Objects”

The New York Times (Novemb 2, 2011), D3

Tim McKeohugh, “Ayala Serfaty’s Light Sculptures on Display”

Cultured Magazine (Winter, 2012), 118

Tali Yaffe, “A Light Touch”

Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Arts website

Dafna Kauffmann, “Paludes”

in Consciousness, Literature and the Arts 15 (1) (April, 2014)

Nava Sevilla Sadeh, “A Subline Vision: Classical Concepts of Sublimation in Classical and Hellenistic Sculptural Goddess Images and their Manifestation in Artworks by Two Contemporary Israeli Artists, Lea Avital and Ayala Serfaty”

The Urban Glass Quarterly 140 (Fall, 2015), 50-53

William Ganis, “Ayala Serfaty’s Shared Intimacies”

Ayala Serfaty
69 Mazzeh Street
Tel Aviv 6578930, Israel

ayala@ayalaserfaty.com
+972 544 222 850


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