Haziel and Ma’aseyahu
Boaz VAADIA
Israel/USA 1951-2017
arrived USA 1975
Haziel and Ma’aseyahu
Israeli-born artist Boaz Vaadia is best known for figurative sculptures constructed from stacked slates and stones. The artist salvaged these materials as urban detritus in the vicinity of his studio in New York where he relocated in 1975 on a grant from the America-lsrael Cultural Foundation. Previous to this move, and both before and after conscripted service in the Israeli Army, Vaadia studied at the Avni Institute of Fine Arts in Tel Aviv, where he later taught after graduation. On arrival in New York, he undertook further study at the renowned Pratt Institute.
Whether as individual figures or figure groups, Vaadia’s stone and slate sculptures have a timeless quality arising in part from the artist’s choice of materials but also from the sense of repose and spiritual calm conveyed by his seated or respectfully kneeling personages. Vaadia himself remarked ‘I work with nature as an equal partner…the strongest thing I address is that primal connection of man to earth.’