Using the iPad to view the embedded video in the History, Heritage and the Lower East Side series.

ART CV

Dutch-born New York multidisciplinary visual artist Yona Verwer is the recipient of the 2024 Fellowship Grant by the MFJC.

She creates works that explore identity, immigration, ecology, heritage, and spirituality.

Sourcing from a variety of cultures, she works in a varied range of media and materials, among them painting, installations, new media and video.

Her current project in the making, Living Waters, navigates the connections between nature and human intervention, prompting contemplation on humanity's role in shaping the environment. It explores the delicate balance between nature and artifice, inviting viewers to ponder the intricate interdependence of the natural world.

Verwer holds a master’s degree in fine art from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, and has shown in over 30 museum exhibitions, as well as many galleries, in the USA, and internationally.

Her work has been recognized internationally through exhibitions at the Jerusalem Biennale, Andy Warhol Factory, Heller Museum, Reginald Lewis Museum of African-American Art, Yeshiva University Museum, Ein Harod Museum, the Bronx Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, Mizel Museum, Stanback Museum, Canton Museum of Art, and the Holocaust Memorial Center.

She has been published in 4 languages, including the New York Times by William Zimmer, The New Yorker by Boris Fishman, Art Criticism by Matthew Baigell, as well as Ars Judaica, The Huffington Post, NRC Handelsblad, and The Daily News.

Verwer is featured in Matthew Baigell’s Jewish Identity in American Art: A Golden Age since the 1970s, and Ori Soltes’ Tradition and Transformation: Three Millennia of Jewish Art and Architecture.

Besides paintings and installations she is creates interactive, collaborative works, incorporating 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 themes of the work.