The Softness of Iron: Welded Sculpture by Orna Ben-Ami

“Orna Ben-Ami makes her art with a welder’s torch, bringing a feminine touch to metalworking. She turns hot iron into what appears to be soft fabric: a ballet slipper, a child’s pinafore, a pillow still bearing the imprint of a head.”

– Dianne Whitacre, Charlotte Observer

“Such an exceptional capacity to transform metal into something else proves an apt visual metaphor for Ben-Ami’s project. Just as we use fantasy to escape the less tolerable clutches of reality, so Ben-Ami imbues her material with the power of transmutation.”

– Jessica Dawson, The Washington Post

The Softness of Iron: Welded Sculpture by Orna Ben-Ami is a stunning exhibition of 28 iron sculptures from the world-renowned Israeli artist Orna Ben-Ami. Critically acclaimed for its surprising contrasts of medium and theme, The Softness of Iron is replete with personal content that intersects with collective memories.

Ben-Ami creates highly symbolic pieces that carry universal, local, and deeply personal meanings, conveying thought-provoking contrasts of war and peace, memory and forgetting, the private and the collective. The artist’s works portray simple man-made objects from everyday life—such as clothing, books, and furniture—examined from a young girl’s point of view. Removed from their natural context, the objects undergo a material and contextual transformation. The resulting sculptures evoke an emotional and cultural history, while simultaneously hinting at the broader human experience.

Ben-Ami studied sculpture at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC, and at Tel Aviv University. She has presented numerous solo exhibitions in her native Israel, as well as in Europe and the United States. Ben-Ami is internationally recognized as a prodigiously gifted and insightful sculptress of iron.

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