"Cool" Sculpture

Limor Dekel has always been drawn to transformation—of materials, ideas, and connections. Born and raised in Israel to creative parents, she grew up surrounded by art and movement, first training as a dancer at the Bat-Dor Academy of Dance before choosing to express herself through visual art. After studying ceramic design at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, she moved to the U.S. in 1984, setting up a ceramic studio and selling her award-winning work to designers, galleries, and at regional art fairs. Over time, her creative path expanded—interior and graphic design, years of teaching art, and eventually, a shift to sculpture. Like many artists before her, Dekel turns to the everyday for material and meaning. Where others have worked with cardboard—think Robert Rauschenberg’s combines, or Ann Weber’s large-scale sculptures—Dekel approaches it more like clay. She molds, layers, carves, and sculpts, breaking the traditional picture plane to create dimensional portraits that push beyond surface representation. Sketches and photographs inform her compositions, but the material itself dictates the form, its rough edges and unexpected textures becoming part of the story. Her turn to cardboard was sparked during the pandemic, when Zoom teaching flattened human interaction, and the Age of Amazon filled doorsteps with discarded boxes—symbols of both isolation and excess. Refrigerator boxes, shipping containers, packaging materials once destined for the trash are now the foundation of her work. Upcycling is not just a practical choice; it’s a conceptual one. The repurposed material speaks to reinvention, resilience, and the overlooked beauty in what’s left behind.