My sculpted canvas breaks through the painting’s normative flat surface and offers a metaphor for Spinoza’s intellectual break from normative thinking. A diagonal slit created by two canvas flaps with Spinoza's portrait bears the word “caute,” referring to Spinoza’s signet ring with that inscription on it. Inside the slit the viewer encounters hidden images linking past to present.

Artist Bio

Dutch-born, New York based Yona Verwer is a multimedia artist exploring personal and collective identity, history, tikkun olam, and kabbalah. She holds a master’s degree in fine art from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Besides creating 2-D and 3-D paintings she is doing interactive, collaborative works incorporating Augmented Reality. These works consist of digital painting collage and acrylic paint on canvas. 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.

Verwer has exhibited in galleries and museums internationally, such as the Jerusalem Biennale, Yeshiva University Museum, Andy Warhol Factory, Holocaust Memorial Center, Reginald Lewis Museum of African-American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, Center for Jewish History, Mizel Museum, Stanback Museum, Canton Museum of Art, and others.

She has been published in 4 languages, including the New York Times by WilliamZimmer, The New Yorker by Boris Fishman, Art Criticism by Matthew Baigell, Ars Judaica, The Huffington Post, NRC Handelsblad, The Daily News, The Forward, The Jewish Week, and Sh’ma Journal. Verwer is [also] featured in Ori Soltes’ Tradition and Transformation: Three Millennia of Jewish Art and Architecture..

Furthermore, Verwer has lectured at The Jewish Museum, the 92 St Y, the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art, and the JCC Manhattan amongst others.

View her resume here and press here.

Verwer is the director & co-founder of the Jewish Art Salon, the world’s largest Jewish visual arts organization, where she produced 30 exhibitions and 40 art events to date.

Additional artwork created for the Spinoza exhibition: "Zodiacs on the Lower East Side", Mixed Media Digital Image on Fabric with Augmented Reality.

A collaboration by Cynthia Beth Rubin, Kris Tonski and Yona Verwer.

24" x 60", 2016 - 2019.