Ayala Serfaty

Since the 1990s, Ayala Serfaty has forged a unique path in the world of contemporary design, translating the structural and aesthetic qualities of the natural world into three- dimensional objects. Her conceptual furniture and lighting, every piece unique, have been described by experts as ‘multi-disciplinary’, a ‘fusion of art, craft and design’, and as dispelling the line between nature and abstraction. Her approach focuses on ancient traditions, striving to revive their spirit and energies in an unorthodox, unexpected and innovative manner.

Ayala Serfaty is world-renowned for her ‘SOMA’ series (her “clouds”), an fascinating and intangible luminous sculptures reminiscent of biomorphic forms are notably part of the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Ayala Serfaty is world-renowned for her ‘SOMA’ series (her “clouds”), an fascinating and intangible luminous sculptures reminiscent of biomorphic forms are notably part of the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Each ‘SOMA’ piece is unique and handmade out of thin blown glass rods that are individually flame-worked until they partially melt and join together. Little by little a cobweb-like structure appears, real glass lace that is then sprayed with a clear polymer that also filters the light. The glass veins, that always remain visible under the translucent skin of polymer, embody both the power and the fragility of human beings.

‘SOMA’ captures the viewers’ gaze, bringing them to experience nature in its spiritual and emotional dimensions. Clouds, crystals of sparkling snow, corals or lichens: the assertion of life forms and the simultaneous impossibility of deciding between one or the other compels her work to rise above its own materiality and produces an irresistible drive toward the sublime. For Ayala does not sculpt nature, but rather gives form to the breath of life.

Since 2010, Ayala Serfaty has developed a collection of seats made of wool, linen and silk fibers which she carefully gathers from all over the world. Like a painter mixes paint on a pallet, the artist handcrafts a unique felt for each piece to create custom colors and textures. The series of sensual and protective felt chairs, armchairs and benches is called ‘RAPA’ (‘the healer’ in Hebrew). The name echoes the idea so dear to Joseph Beuys who claimed to have been treated and healed during WWII by this material. Each featuring a unique organic pattern, these seats of singular beauty and consummate comfort defy categorization while bringing to mind rocky soil, bird plumage, and animal hides. Visually rough but infinitely soft to the touch, they succeed in blurring the usual sensitive frontiers while asserting the physical and terrestrial character of life.

Ayala Serfaty was born in Tel Aviv in 1962. She is a graduate in Fine Arts of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, and of Middlesex Polytechnic in London. She lives and works in Tel Aviv. For over twenty years, she has exhibited in museums worldwide such as the London Design Museum, the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, just to name a few. Her work is included in the permanent collections of numerous museums in the US: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, the Museum of Arts and Design, NY, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Mint Museum, the Corning Museum of Glass, the Indianapolis Museum of Art.