Aya Bendat

My passion for creative expression and richness consumes me. I constantly crave new beginnings and embrace the struggle associated with each new creation. Perhaps being an immigrant and child of Holocaust survivors belies my fidelity to any one style or medium. It most certainly has influenced my aesthetic and cultural curiosities. Everything is always in flux - a constant state of motion that manifests as creative furor.

My life's work is composed of capturing the unconventional beauty and visual complexities of life, interweaving humor, oddity, and unconventional beauty across a breadth of mediums - from paintings and monotypes to clay and metals. I am particularly fascinated by the concept of tension and the interplay of opposites and dualities - foreign and familiar, symmetrical and asymmetrical, conventional and bizarre, abstract and concrete. I express these tensions in my work spontaneously with free-gestured brushstrokes and bold use of color.

Armory Art Center – West Palm Beach, Florida, 2002- present

Docent at the Norton Museum of Art - West Palm Beach Florida, 2015 - present

Tel Aviv University, MA, Interdisciplinary Arts Program – Tel Aviv, Israel, 2012

La Meridiana International School of Ceramics – Cirtaldo, Italy, 2006/2011

Art Student League – New York, NY, 2001-2003

International Photography Center – New York, NY, 2001

92 St. Y. Ceramic Department – New York, NY, 2000-2005

National Academy of Fine Arts – New York, NY, 1997-2000

Academy of Art Teachers – Ramat Hasharon, Israel, 1981

Avni Institute of Fine Art – Tel Aviv, Israel, 1980

Tel Aviv University, Teaching Certificate – Tel Aviv, Israel 1978

Tel Aviv University, B.A. Literature – Tel Aviv, Israel, 1977

LUSH 2 : A Contemporary Ceramics Exhibition at the Lighthouse Gallery, Jupiter, Florida, 2022

Group Show, Lake Worth Beach - Cultural Council for Palm Beach County, 2019

Group show, Tel Aviv Museum Catalogue – Tel Aviv, Israel 2013

Won juried show, ceramics, at Armory Art Center, 2010/2011/2013

Won juried show and selected to exhibit at Lincoln Center Corck Gallery, 2000

Selected as a member of the Salmagundi club

Won juried show and selected to exhibit at the Museum of the National Academy of Fine Art, 1999

Won first place award for excellence at the National Academy of Fine Art for printmaking, 1999

Won juried show and selected to exhibit at Lincoln Center Corck Gallery, 1998

Two-person show, Sundance Gallery – Bridgehampton, NY, 1998

Group show, Sumi gallery – Tel-Aviv, Israel, 1998

Solo show, East Brunswick Museum – East Brunswick, NJ, 1981