An artist and maker, Ariel earned his MFA in Glass from RISD - Rhode Island School of Design in June 2023.  In 2020 he received his BFA in Ceramics and Glass from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, Israel.

 

In his BFA thesis - ‘In dialogue’  - he experimented with glassblowing into a specific steel mold of many degrees of freedom. The result is a set of fourteen large biomorphic objects. Since then he seeks to express the dialogues between glass as matter and himself as creator, while allowing the glass “to speak for itself”. 

This approach expanded into exploratory iterations between ‘I’, ‘Others’ and ‘World’ poles of a triangle of relations. Ariel inquires into these relations through his glasswork.

 

His MFA thesis – ‘Olam’ – (Hebrew for World) consists of a circle of glass bowls with white cane interlacing, located on a red-oak platform, close to the floor of a 10/10 f’ room.

When visitors enter the room, a sensor activates a felt covered mallet, which moves and hits the bowls. The sound rises, creating a boundless space and an immersive experience. But when the visitors leave, all goes back to quietness.

 

At RISD, at Bezalel, as well as in his exchange semester to KADK - Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts,  Denmark, and during his internship at the Glass Factory and the Orrefors Park in Sweden, Ariel focused on balance between tradition and innovation in glassblowing.   

 

He uses interlacing both as a component of glasswork and as a metaphor for relations between person and others, and within societal, cultural,  environmental and historic networks.

 

Ariel traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, America and Australia. This changed with the restrictions and quarantines of COVID-19 epidemic, which limited accessibility to glassblowing infrastructure. As such, he opened his own studio, AravotArt, temporarily devoting himself to ceramics and cold work in glass, mainly sandblasting and bone adhesive application.

 

Ariel had three main solo exhibitions (A&L Center, RISD “Parallel spheres” , May 2023; Chrysler Museum Glass Studio Vestibule “Atmosphere – A Shared Spirit” Dec 2022-Jan.2023 and Mizgaga - Museum, Israel – Feb.-July 2021) and participated in fifteen group exhibitions, including the International Biennale of Glass, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2021 and the Venice Glass Week, 2023.

 

One of his works was awarded as a symbol of appreciation to Dr. Anthony Fauci, former chief medical advisor to the President of the United States, and the man regarded as being at the forefront of the U.S. response to the pandemic.

His work is sold at the Tel-Aviv Eretz Israel Museum.

 

Ariel’s practice as glassblower requires teamwork and collaboration, which are both guiding factors in his making and his deep engagement to work with others. He experiments with traditional techniques, not only in glassblowing, but also in kiln forming and even ceramics, because he believes that innovation in handmaking may be cultivated through contextual dialogues with the rich traditions and cumulated know-how of local cultures worldwide.