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INTRODUCING ZAHAVA SHEREZ, CONTEMPORARY ARTIST, ACTIVIST AND VISIONARY by Dale Youngman
“Addressing the three major Western religions is my starting point. The original message of all these religions is the same – we are one people traveling on different paths to arrive at the same place: Love and Light. This work is a reminder.” Born in Argentina to a historically persecuted people, Zahava Sherez grew up in Israel, lived on both coasts of the US as well as three other continents, and has experienced immigration, wars, oppression, and loss. A direct descendent of generations of immigrants and refugees, Zahava embraces all cultures, traditions, and the highest level of spirituality. By the time she was 10, she spoke and/or heard people around her speak Russian, Spanish, Quichua, Yiddish, Arabic, and Hebrew. The many cultures she experienced showed her the magnificent differences between these cultures, while also teaching her how profoundly alike we all truly are. These experiences and the lessons learned became her muse and inspiration, and have helped her create this extraordinary and moving body of work.
Trained as a figurative/realistic sculptor, she created her first bronze in 1993, a sculpture called “Flower Arrangement.” This sculpture was the beginning of a long journey, using her art to raise consciousness about ‘the other’, the immigrant, and the refugee. The backstory behind her work is as important as the art itself, as she strives to depict a narrative on humanity through all of her work, including painting, clay prints and sculpture in various mediums. In 2017, Sherez began working on a project entitled “InBodied Light”, a title that reflects the nature and message it represents — promoting spiritual and social justice. She has already completed 20 sculptures ranging in size from 2 feet to 7 feet tall, and plans to create another 10 pieces in various sizes for a large-scale installation accompanied by large clay prints in preparation for a solo exhibit early next year. It is her desire that this project become a solo show traveling around the world, exhibiting in prestigious galleries, non-profits, museums, and well-known art venues who may resonate with her vision and appreciate the message she is trying to convey. Sherez retired from teaching in 2019 after 25 years to focus full-time on her art, and particularly on the InBodied Light Project. To keep the project financially viable, she moved part-time to Mexico, and began working with a foundry in Zapopan, Guadalajara. She found the quality of the work to be excellent while allowing her dollars to stretch much farther, as the cost of living, molding, and casting in Mexico are extremely low compared to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she maintains a second studio and home. The figures created for this project are devoid of any identifying human features, to avoid the labels imposed on humanity. By keeping them faceless and gender-neutral, Sherez hopes to avoid the work being labeled into sub-groups that may perpetuate oppression, violence, or discrimination. In this manner, each sculpture is both no one - and everyone - and exemplifies the artists’ message that we are, in fact, All One.
“These beings are made of resin, bronze, mixed media, and light. Light is central to the message behind this work. As resin allows light to flow through and bounce off the textured surfaces, it emphasizes my truth that we are all light, engulfed in an ocean of energy that connects us to everything and everyone.” Explorations with materials, color, mixed media, and light have given each piece a subtle yet different demeanor. Gently shaping each piece after it is cast with electric and manual stone-carving tools, Sherez creates a myriad of different sculptures out of the same molds. Using light as a focal element to the work, each piece has a delicate glow from within, thereby developing variation in color and form. Her signature process creates an ethereal and unique presence to each figure, enabling her to emphasize the energy within and around, as it engulfs the sculpture and the individual viewer as one.
Zahava’s work appears in private and corporate collections in the US, Israel, the Netherlands, Australia, Chile, Puerto Rico, London, and Mexico. She is the recipient of numerous awards and has shown her work in fine art galleries and museums on both coasts, in such venues as The Discovery Museum, CT; Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, NY; The American Artists Professional League, Salmagundi Club, NY; Sculpture Site Gallery, CA; St. Mary’s College Museum of Art, CA, and many more. Internationally, she has exhibited in Paris, Corsica, Mexico City, and China. Participating in 11 exhibitions this year, her most recent show has just opened, as “Being #2” is featured as part of an exhibit entitled "So Real - Surreal!” at the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts in Mill Valley, CA. To see more work or purchase sculpture by Zahava Sherez, please visit the ArtExcellence Online Gallery, Click Here _________________________________ Author Dale Youngman is an independent art curator, fine art dealer, marketing consultant and art writer, working to facilitate the flow of art in Southern California. She currently consults with artists, galleries, interior designers, non-profits, and a new art platform to advance business for everyone in the art world. She has twice been honored by the LA Mayor’s Office with “Certificates of Recognition“ for her many years of art advocacy. Find Dale at her website.
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Sherez’s art is about the essence of the human journey as experienced by the individual and the collective. Her experiences have taught her that humanity is all one. Her influences are many, but include Brancusi, Isamu Noguchi, Eva Hesse, Rumi and The Guides. 
“With this work I have moved from giving voice to ‘the other’ to creating a massive body of work that speaks about equity, equality, interconnectedness, and justice for all.”
