Ayala Serfaty

Of the many wonderful artists Maison Gerard represents, one of the most celebrated is Ayala Serfaty of Tel Aviv.

Since the 1990s Ayala Serfaty has forged a unique path in the world of contemporary design, creating lights and furniture that are at once natural and abstract. Her work is an attempt to revive living spirit and energy in unorthodox, unexpected, and innovative forms.

Serfaty is perhaps best known for her SOMA series, the sculptural lights named after a term for the body of a neuron, the central nodule from which its myriad dendrites branch off in every direction. While the likeness of this series to its inspiration is striking, the work, whether spread horizontally across the ceiling or dropped as a chandelier into the midst of a room, echos many of the most basic forms in nature, from lightning to crystalline seams of semi-precious stone, from coral reefs and the plants of low lying Japanese gardens to the clouds stretched across the sky.

This universality of form is what Serfaty finds most alluring about the neuron. Blown up to this grand scale, the works forming SOMA do what all of her work does best, their skeletal structures evoking concrete living things, their floating, diaphanous charm the soul: The sensations, thoughts, and love with which all living things are suffused.

The work is this comprehensive vision of beauty writ large, hovering above or alongside; a tangible echo of nature, and of people, the very things which animate space, that give all rooms meaning.

Considering this, it’s no surprise Serfaty is frequently commissioned to work on bespoke projects, tailoring her extraordinary light fixtures to ceilings and walls above dining tables, stairwells, bedrooms, and offices—adjusting her works’ sizes, textures, and arrangements to fit the specific needs of each.

Serfaty has, moreover, created bespoke installations for some of the world’s most esteemed museums, including the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Beelden Aan Zee, the Den Haag, the Mingei, the Mint, the London Design Museum, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, the Cooper Hewitt Museum, the Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, and the Centre Georges Pompidou.

What you will find below are just a few of the magnificent examples of how her work can inhabit a room.