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Yona Verwer

I am a Dutch-born New York based artist, who create works that explore identity, terrorism, tikkun olam, and kabbalah.

Yona Verwer has a Masters Degree in Fine Arts from the Royal Academy of Arts in the Netherlands, and has shown and curated in numerous galleries and museums in New York and in Europe. View her website here.   In addition she is doing interactive, collaborative works with artist Cynthia Beth Rubin. Their series History, Heritage and the Lower East Side weaves together the stories of the past and the present in layers of paint, photographs, video, recordings, and music. Working with Jewish architecture from throughout the world, their work evokes the traces of melded histories.     These works consist of mediated digital painting collage and acrylic paint on canvas, with Augmented Reality.    Using an iPad or smart-phone, the viewer triggers videos embedded in the artwork, embarking on a discovery process that leads the viewer closer to experiencing the sensations of the layered history of the Lower East Side.  More info here.   Yona Verwer's art has been featured in solo shows in the Netherlands and New York, in venues such as the Andy Warhol Factory, the Bronx Museum, the Maryland Museum of African-American Art, The YU Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art.    Yona Verwer has been published in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Daily News, the Huffington Post.

Yona Verwer's Background

Yona Verwer's Experience

Curatorial Committee for Samaritans Exhibition at YU Center for Israel Studies

June 2021 - Present | New York and Washington DC

Co-curator of the Jewish contemporary art contribution to the exhibition Samaritans- A Biblical People, curated by Professor Steven Fine.

Curator Zoom Open Studios 2020; Advisor current Open Studios at Jewish Art Salon

February 2020 - Present | Online

Series of online art programs during and dealing with the Covid pandemic. Current series is curated by Dorit Jordan Dotan and Judith Joseph; I am Advisor. With assistance by Cheselyn Amato and Chana Wiesenthal Elias.

Co-curator All Together Different at Manny Cantor Center

June 2014 - March 2015 | New York City

Co-curated with Linda Griggs. This Survey of Working Artists on the Lower East Side was opened by NYC DCLA chair Tom Finkelpearl with over 100 artists including Kiki Smith, Roger Welch, Richard Hambleton, Kembra Pfahler, Anton Van Dalen, David Sandlin, and Susannah Coffey.

Director of Arts Programming at Columbia / Barnard Kraft Center

April 2012 - May 2013 | New York

Created five art exhibits with accompanying programming.

Co-organizer "Silent Witnesses" at Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus

September 2011 - April 2012

2012 Artists project and exhibition on how synagogues, as community institutions, stand as witness to the social upheavals of our time. Cultural Heritage Artists Project by Cynthia Beth Rubin. With julian Voloj.

Co-curator "Terror: Artists Respond". at Industry City

December 2010 - September 2011

Curatorial Advisor "The Dura Europos Project" at Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art

March 2010 - February 2011

Curatorial Advisor "Generation D: Identities" at Flomenhaft Gallery, NYC

October 2010 - December 2010

Curatorial Advisor "Seduced by the Sacred". at Charter Oak Cultural Center, Hartford, CT

March 2010 - November 2010

Executive Director at Jewish Art Salon

April 2008

The Jewish Art Salon is an NY State 501.c.3 non-profit; an innovative, international community of artists, curators, and other art professionals. It promotes contemporary art exploring Jewish themes related to current issues. It organizes exhibits, public art events, and (in the New York area) bi-monthly salon sessions with international artists and scholars. - Developed and produced Jewish Art Salon's public programming, including exhibitions, panel discussions, artist lecture series, multi-disciplinary performances, and curatorial conversations. Some of the New York venues involved are the Flomenhaft Gallery, Yeshiva University Museum; Skirball Center, JCC Manhattan, UJA Federation NY, Limmud NY. Also the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, the Museum of the Bible (2022) and The Holocaust Memorial Center in Detroit. 
-Wrote and received a grant to create and manage the "Connect with Art" Project, an initiative by the Council of Jewish Émigré Council Organizations. -Created press and marketing campaigns for all events. Coverage by the Jewish Channel TV, the Forward, Zeek, Jewish Week, Jewish Press, Hadassah Magazine, and Tachles. Other media campaigns resulted in mentions in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Art Criticism, Haaretz, Ars Judaica, and Shma Journal. -Created Brooklyn event with the "Shofar Flashmob" by Art kibbutz, a public art action which took place in seventeen cities around the world. -Formed a presenters bureau. Dozens of artists and speakers have been hired for lectures and workshops since Fall 2013. -Recruited 35 volunteers.

Artist at Yona Verwer

January 1990 | New York

Artist 01/1 - Present New York In City Charms I work with painted amulets that I designed as protection devices for noted American landmarks. I created these amulets to depict, address and counter the continuing post-9/11 sense of insecurity & vulnerability. I continue this theme in "Temple Talismans"; these apotropaic images aim to protect synagogues against attacks and to bring good luck.

Yona Verwer's Education

Royal Academy of Art

Masters Fine Art


Yona Verwer's Interests & Activities

Contemporary Art, Painting, Murals, New Media Art, Jewish Contemporary Art, Tikkun Olam, Feminist Jewish Art.

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