Words Paul Tierney Photography Martien Mulder
Published in No 12
Yaron’s work on view in ART+NATURE+HOME: In 3s
Surrounded by great hunks of wood, some raw and unresolved, others carved into primordial shapes that bathe in autumn light, NADIA YARON appears happy with her lot. Walking around her sizeable workshop — an ageing barn set in the grounds of the family farmhouse, the artist and sculptor is literally beaming with joy. If home is where the art is, the glint in her eye, plus a smile that could stop traffic, suggests she may finally have arrived.
This multi-creative lives defiantly on the outskirts. On a radiant October morning the surrounding countryside fairly pops with primary colour — a child’s naive painting come to life. The house, a rugged clapboard gem, is in perpetual renovation, surrounded by cornfields that sway in the breeze, punctuated by luminous trees and framed by motionless, cartoon clouds. Although it sounds idyllic, the move last year, with boyfriend Doug (“my baby daddy”) and three young children, was an enormous leap of faith. Luckily there are no regrets, just a dogged optimism, both endearing and infectious.
“I like it here because it’s liberal,” she declares. “There’s a lot of gay people around, and we have Kamal Johnson, a black mayor, too. So, I didn’t feel like I was moving into Trump Land, although this is very much Trump country.”
With her identical twins and best friends, Theo Thistle and Moon Magnolia.
Luckily, history moves on. It’s as if the landscape here, already on the cusp of seasonal handover, senses change around the corner. It’s a feeling Yaron knows all too well, and her vivid history, as complex as the work itself, bears this out. Born in Brazil, to Russian and Italian parents fleeing Communist China (“it’s random”), she was brought up on Long Island — a Portuguese-speaking refugee, eager to embrace the apple pie culture of her new surroundings. ‘And then I rebelled! I was a shave-headed Riot Grrrl, into skateboards and Bikini Kill. I did a lot of drugs. I drank. I fell in love with women.”
Yaron is interesting to say the least, recounting her life like a series of vaguely sit-com mishaps: the brief office job in regional politics (“I was terrible”), a stint cooking vegan food for a couple in Beverly Hills (“Also terrible. I never tasted it”), and that time she lived in a treehouse as part of an anarchist collective. Returning to New York, and now married to a woman, she settled in a Brooklyn brownstone, learnd to weave, and embarked on career that involved “making things, and creating interior spaces.”
In the library-sans-bookshelves, Yaron’s 11’ long Altar #5, of salvaged Ash. A daybed made by Yaron and her partner, Doug Newton, along with early sculptures by Yaron.
“Twenty years in Brooklyn was enough,” she muses. “I needed to escape. I have kids now and wanted more space. I don’t want to feel like people are above or below me. And I just want to work. Out here I can expand. Working in Brooklyn, just trying to get a log into the studio was a fucking nightmare.”
For the uninitiated, this is an artist whose work, in wood and stone — sometimes practical, always personal — is something to behold. With unorthodox techniques and almost spiritual enquiry she is fearless in her commitment to create, unhindered by a strict vision. “When I started, I had the intention of not having any plans or limitations. I just wanted to make something out of wood. So, I went into my basement in Brooklyn and I just started cutting shit up. I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t even want people to see it. I just wanted to be free to make stuff and see what would happen.”
Yaron and a favorite tool — the chainsaw.
The random act of making things suits her. The workshop resembles an organic gymnasium of sorts, with work mounted on machinery (a vast piece of fallen tree hangs from the rafters like a huge Spanish jamon), and smaller, finished pieces displayed around the perimeter of the space, like curious contenders. Nothing is uniform here, no two ideas alike. There are pieces in alabaster, maple and oak. Geometric, almost mid-century shapes are pared down and texturized into sun-bleached tactile icons, layered totems and carved abstract forms. One intimidating piece of alabaster, sanded down into smooth, step-like grooves, resembles a melting Art Deco ice cube.
“I try to maintain a balance where I have a sense of freedom, and I’m not necessarily trying to create a specific shape or get to a certain place,” she explains gently. “I don’t want things to feel contrived or self-conscious, so I’m always trying to find that balance between freedom and planning. It’s an in-between state.”
But what does it all mean? It’s clear the work she’s doing doesn’t need to have meaning attached to it, or even need to tell a story. In fact, it should be encouraging other people’s involvement and their imagination. “I agree,” she smiles, “that’s also why I don’t choose to name my pieces. I don’t want to tell people how to think, I want them to feel something. It doesn’t necessarily have to be what I think it is, or what I feel, but I think that’s what art is. Good art makes you feel something. It may make you feel shitty, depressed, maybe melancholy. But it can make you feel peaceful and good too.”
Yaron’s Altar #6, 2020, made during the height of the pandemic in an effort to create a calm, grounding space.
If that all sounds too easy, be in no doubt that happy-go-lucky platitudes are contrasted with statements of real intent. “I like to create negative space,” she declares. “Negative space for me is more about the possibilities of what could be there, or what could exist beyond that.”
The work does attempt to make connections. “I made an altar for somebody’s home,” she recalls, “and I think that was an epiphany for me. I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to make sacred, safe spaces for people, and that starts with an altar. It felt good.”
The altars are assembled with an adroit eye for design and a life-affirming soulfulness. Plinths of wood are adorned with offering plates crafted from beaten metal, while in the space above, perhaps in the pane of a window, she might add fragments of loosely woven textile. “For me, they’re about balance, about combining the sacred with the daily, because that’s basically what I’m trying to do in my own life.” Contemporary, gallery-bound and almost certainly unique, these are pieces that look equally powerful in domestic settings. Reverence, prayer or sacrifice? The possibilities are endless.
Over at the main house, the aesthetic blends seamlessly — a scrubbed, pared-back space full of light and air, populated almost exclusively by her own work. Nothing looks overthought here, restraint being her greatest gift. Although undeniably beautiful, there’s also a raw element at play that renders things imperfect. “I love the imperfect. I mean, that’s life, right? I like to create cozy spaces, I don’t like them to be too overdone, and I like them to be functional. but they also don’t need to be boring. I’m not a go-by-the-rules type of person. I didn’t take woodworking classes. I’m not stuck on doing things the right way. I want to create a feeling. I’m not always sure whether it’s actually working but I’m just learning.”
Maybe sculpture is a little bit like life? “Perhaps. I know that I’m taking away all the excess, then I’m putting it back together to create a more stable and meaningful existence.”
Work in progess in the outdoor studio..
Which sounds very Little House on the Prairie. “It’s fairly wholesome but it’s definitely not that,” she laughs. “Yet in my life I’m always trying to simplify, to edit down and remove. Especially for my kids. They don’t watch TV; they don’t look at screens. I’m just trying to keep the noise away — for me, for us — and I do the same with my materials. It’s the physical act of removing volume and editing down. I do it until I feel I have that ‘A-ha’ moment. It’s basically just a deep breath.”
While her kids are not rolling down hills wearing bonnets, Yaron’s rural idyll remains a safe haven from the malaise of modern America. “It’s a place of protection, yes,” she agrees. “I’m trying to protect everybody from the elements.”
“I just think that I’ve finally found what I’m supposed to be doing and where I’m supposed to be. I’m happy now, I feel safe and settled. But impermanence is always in my realm.”
Yaron’s work on view in ART+NATURE+HOME: In 3s