artist profile
Noa Arad-Yairi
born
1960
lives and works
Jerusalem, Israel
education
Wizo-Hadassa, Haifa, Israel, 1988
about the artist
Women—alone, in pairs or in populations— are the cast of characters in Noa Arad-Yairi’s sculptural narrative about the feminine condition. Each figure is based on someone close and beloved, initially photographed in a natural pose of her choosing and subsequently rendered into an object of calculated likeness. In the artist’s “digging” away of materials, be it clay or bronze, strength is found in delicacy, perseverance is revealed in fragility, independence is borne of loneliness. Of all shapes and sizes, expressions and postures, each one stays calm and still in the space between who she wants to be and who she is expected to be. Currently working as a sculptor, Arad-Yairi was previously director of her own design studio. She has held exhibitions in various cities across Israel and is the partner of fellow contemporary Israeli artist, Yuval Yairi.