About
Born in Texas of Iraqi/Israeli background, she has an MFA in painting from Boston University and a BA from Smith College. She has had multiple solo and group shows and including exhibitions at Howard Yezerski Gallery, Samson Projects, Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, Tufts Art Gallery, Danforth Museum, and the Art Center of Macedonia.
The Museum of Fine Arts Boston has commissioned her for various projects and her work is reviewed in ARTnews and the Boston Globe. While an artist in resident in 2019 at MASS MoCA she collaborated with dancers at Jacob’s Pillow. May 2020 the City of Boston announced Ariel as a recipient of a Transformative Public Art Grant.
In 2021, she received a Visual Arts Artist Fellowship, Somerville Arts Council and a Combined Jewish Philanthropies Arts and Culture Community Impact Grant, for Love + Salt public art installation and virtual platform.
In 2021 “Hellbent” was a solo exhibition exploring the biblical narrative of Salome, was at the Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University, where she is a Professor and Coordinator of the Post-Baccalaureate Studio Art Program.
Since 2015 Ariel has focused on her multicultural identity, with research on Iraqi Jews, exploring her personal family history and the complex fissures her family has with their identity.
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