Ayala Serfaty, Rapa Series: Daura & Justo, Armchair & Ottoman, israel, 2013

Fabricated in 2017 specifically for Design Miami.

About Ayala Serfaty:

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 a ‘fusion of art, craft, and design,’ and as defusing the line between the natural and the abstract. Her approach focuses on ancient traditions, striving to revive their spirit and energies in an unorthodox, unexpected, and innovative manner.

Serfaty became known for 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 successive series, including Rapa, Serfaty has created furniture of handmade textiles, crafting felt out of fibers she carefully gathered from all over the world. These are less a departure than a form of reconnection, as it was the very materiality inherent in these textiles, which has informed her work from the very beginning.

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 over thirty years Serfaty has exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. She has had solo shows at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the Sculpture Museum Beelden Aan Zee, Den Haag, and has participated in group shows at the 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, just to name a few.

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, the Museum of Arts and Design, the Mint Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Corning Museum of Glass, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. She has held solo shows at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the Sculpture Museum Beelden Aan Zee, Den Haag, and participated in group shows in such museums as the London Design Museum, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design in Nuremberg, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, to name but a few.