Yona Verwer
Artist in Manhattan, New York
Dutch-born Yona Verwer is an artist in New York. She creates works that explore identity, immigration, heritage, tikkun olam, and kabbalah.
Verwer holds a master’s degree in fine art from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, and has shown and curated in galleries and museums nationally and internationally.
Her work has been exhibited at the Andy Warhol Factory, Jerusalem Biennale, the Bronx Museum, Yeshiva University Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, Center for Jewish History, Mizel Museum, Reginald Lewis Museum of African-American Art, Stanback Museum, Canton Museum of Art, and the Holocaust Memorial Center.
She has been featured in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Ars Judaica, the Huffington Post, the Daily News, the Forward, and others.
Her current series The Book of Yona, a collaboration with Katarzyna Kozera, blends the stories of Verwer’s and Kozera’s coming to America stories with the biblical tale of the prophet Jonah / Yona. Embedded videos (Augmented Reality) in the artwork provide additional context.
Her series Urim & Tumim, partially also with Katarzyna Kozera, portrays a contemporary view of an ancient concept.
In her series History, Heritage and the Lower East Side, a collaboration with Cynthia Beth Rubin, the interactive art work allows you to explore hidden videos.
Her protest art “Tightrope”, an installation previously at the Y.U. Museum, explores the impact that the lack of an eruv on the Lower East Side had on families with young children.
Her "Kabbala of Bling" series commented on the appropriation of Kabbala by pop icons. Her “City Charms” amulet photographs invoke protection from acts of destruction on buildings, particularly terror-watch-list targets.