Spotlight from the Adama Exhibition: Libi Yaar-Horowitz

I’ve had the privilege of knowing and working with Libi Yaar Horowitz for many years. Libi is a prolific and deeply creative artist whose works consistently engage with the complexity of her lived experience. Her art is both intimate and courageous, weaving together personal history, emotional landscapes, and the quiet resilience found in nature. Raised in the ultra-Orthodox world and leaving it at age 20, she has spent years navigating the echoes of complex post-trauma and disassociation—an inner journey that threads through her work with honesty and courage. Today she lives in Kfar Adumim, and her work combines teaching painting, leading workshops, and working with at-risk youth in the Jordan Valley as well as with an integrated group of people coping with mental health challenges in Ma’ale Adumim. Her practice spans mixed media, landscape painting, and artist books that blend collage, text, and illustration—always with a profound connection to nature and the written word. For this exhibition, Libi presents two powerful bodies of work that capture both her personal story and the broader emotional landscape of life in Israel today. In Regrow (2025), Libi paints the burnt trees in the aftermath of the massive wildfire in April 2025 that broke out in the Judaean Mountains area, including around Modiin. Libi’s painting, primarily a palette of reds, oranges, browns, greys and white, shows the result of the destruction, scorched earth, bare branched and charred trunks, but on some of the trees in the midground there are green leaves pushing out of the uppermost branches. The piece resonates as both a reflection of our collective experience and a metaphor for Libi’s own path of healing. It speaks softly yet powerfully about resilience, renewal, and the insistence of life even in the most scorched places. Also on display are six pages from Libi’s artist journals rom this past year—intimate visual diaries created from cut-up books, layered images, and drawings. Most of them are self-portraits: fragmented, searching, and deeply personal. One page breaks the pattern: a portrait of her husband, born from our first artist meeting where we asked everyone to portray someone they are inspired by. It introduces a tender, unexpected dimension to this raw and revealing series. Together, these works invite viewers into Libi’s world—one of vulnerability, creativity, and an ongoing dialogue between inner healing and the natural world around her as well as her place in the larger Israeli experience.