The figurative sculptor and painter, Noa Arad Yairi, presents a series of sculptures in the exhibition that simulate the action of time and decomposition, leaving deliberate remnants that allow for a simultaneous contemplation of the female figure, the absence within her, and the act of creation itself. This is apparent by a process of working with partial casts of polymer plaster poured into a mold of a complete sculpture. These are casts of a thin clay shell, removing the parts that are not essential to the image.
The exhibited pieces echo archaeological findings of ancient art, as fragments that invite the viewer to complete the lost whole in their imagination. However, unlike the archaeological practice of exposure and reconstruction from a remnant, here the act of decomposition is not a product of time but a conscious choice of the artist. She carries out the process of erosion that time inflicts on the body, leaving behind a partial and deliberate presence – a shell that testifies to the whole that is absent from it, like a shed skin carrying the memory of the body it housed.
The superficial female image is present in two dimensions—concave and convex. On one side is the “beautiful,” treated side, and on the other, the raw and material. These allow a glimpse into the structure of the complete sculpture and expose the work’s interior, its fragility, and the act of creation itself. Most of the figures touch their abdomen as if searching or examining something there. A gesture that leads the viewer’s gaze to the concave and convex, to the absence and presence. The female body’s abdomen echoes the womb as an expression of fertility—a tangible, future, or imagined presence of containing another body—through which the artist refers to the intimate, and sometimes critical, relationship between a woman and her body as a sign of continuity and the body as a whole.
A continuous tension exists in the works between the familiar figurative image and the abstract memory. This idea is expressed in the technique used by Noa Arad Yairi: casts of a partial body and exposed glass fiber ends, so that the familiar figure exists alongside the exposure of the structure and material that compose it. The sculpture is exposed and vulnerable, aware of what is lacking, raising a broader question about the limits of the body, what is considered whole, and what continues to exist precisely from within the absence.
The exhibition includes a video work, “Origin of the World” (1:05 min.), a close-up of a tiny tide pool containing a trapped seashell. The movement of the water moves it, is drawn to it, and revives it with motion. In this intimate space, the lightness of the seashell, which drifts and overturns in the water, complements the frozen sculptures, granting them breath and movement, and transforming the bodily image from a silent mass into a living, floating presence.
Noa Arad Yairi is a figurative sculptor and painter who lives and works in Jerusalem. She is a graduate of the Department of Visual Communication, WIZO Academic Center, Haifa (1988). Noa has exhibited in solo exhibitions in Israel and internationally, including: Galerija Ostavinska in Belgrade (2022) and the Artists House in Tel Aviv (2021-2022); she has also participated in group exhibitions in Israel and abroad, including: HaMiffal, Jerusalem (2026); Mamuta at Hansen House, Jerusalem (2026); Jewish Museum, Vienna (2025); Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem (2023-2024).
The small gallery
Curators: Reut Rabuah, Shelly Shavit
Opening: Saturday, 2.5.2026, 11:00
Gallery talk: Friday, 5.6.2026, 11:30
Closing: Saturday, 13.6.2026, 14:00
