Soma 2015

n 2015, Ayala Serfaty was selected to create a special commission incorporating glass and light to celebrate the opening of the Museum’s Contemporary Art + Design Galleries. The resulting sculpture, Soma 2015, is part of a larger series of works by Serfaty that are inspired by organic forms like tree foliage, corals, stalactites, and ice crystal.

Comprised of hundreds of tinted glass filaments and tiny light bulbs, the sculpture is a form that glows from within. With the help of four artisans, Serfaty shapes and fuses the handmade Italian glass filaments in her studio in Tel Aviv, Israel. The finished glass structures are sprayed with a clear polymer developed in the late 1940s by the U.S. military to protect ships in long-term storage. The result is a study in contrasts: industrial material used to make a skin-like membrane that suggests organic natural forms.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.