Yona Verwer

Yona Verwer is a Dutch-born artist working in New York. Her art explores identity, urban culture, tikkun olam, and kabbala. Verwer holds a master’s degree in fine art from the Royal Academy of Art in The Netherlands. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Huffington Post, the NY Daily News, the NY Jewish Week, and in "Tradition and Transformation: Three Millennia of Jewish Art and Architecture" by Ori Z. Soltes.

Verwer has shown and curated in numerous galleries and museums including the Yeshiva University Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, Anne Frank Center For Mutual Respect, Center for Jewish History, the Mizel Museum, Reginald Lewis Museum of African-American Art, Canton Museum of Art, and the Holocaust Memorial Center.

Verwer received critical acclaim for her "Urim & Tumim" paintings, as well as her "Tightrope" installation at New York's Yeshiva University Museum. Her "Kabbala of Bling" series comments on the appropriation of Kabbala by pop icons.

Her “City Charms” and “Temple Talismans” amulet prints invoke protection from acts of destruction on buildings, particularly terror-watch-list targets. Her mural work includes a large-scale "7 Days" installation at the SAR High School in Riverdale.

Verwer is the director / co-founder of the Jewish Art Salon, and has lectured at The Jewish Museum, 14 St Y, the JCC Manhattan, the Isabelle Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, and many other venues.

She serves on the advisory boards of Art Kibbutz - the International Jewish Artist Residency, Zeek - A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture, Jewish Art Now, Art Sprinter, and the Jewish Design Collective. Art Art Kibbutz she is an active and much appreciated member of the Advisory Board as well as the Programming Committee and participated at several artist residencies and exhibitions, including:

The Shofar Flashmob in 2011, the Drink and Draw at Limmud and the 6th Street Synagogue in 2012, the residency at the traveling environmental art exhibition on Governor's Island featured two years in a row, the mini-residency at the New Museum, as well as the Rooted, The Ecological Duality of Nature and Jewish Identity Exhibition at the Manny Cantor Center that she envisioned and co-curated with Aimee Rubensteen. In 2015 Yona was a speaker & presenter at the Shmita ArtFest on Governor's Island - where Augmented Reality premiered.

In 2016 Yona is an artist-in-residence and also bringing her 'ARt, ARchitecture & AR:  Augmented Reality & Jewish Art  exhibition together with Cynthia Beth Rubin between August 21 and September 18, 2016, partially overlapping with the Governors Island Art Fair (September weekends).

In 2017 Yona helped create the SukkahWood exhibition, and in June 2018 she spearheaded the Invisible Jew exhibition, a partnership with JOFA, Hevria, and the Jewish Art Salon.