Biography
Yoab Vera
Lives and works between Mexico City and Istanbul.

In 2021, he received an MFA in Drawing and Painting from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where he also studied meditation practices at the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center in the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and HumanBehavior. He graduated with a B.A. in Studio Art and Art History with a concentration in Latin American Art from Hunter College, New York and studied Architecture in Mexico City at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Vera’s work is buoyant, modular, and transitory. He often hybridizes materials from the everyday urban environment into his paintings and installations to allow memories of landscapes to emerge. He paints by combining oil-stick and concrete. He uses oil-stick for its tactile immediacy and concrete for being a recognizable and ubiquitous material reference in the architecture of urban spaces. The surface of his work is used as an impermanent field of possibilities for affective translation and recognition. He calls his practice -- haptic contemplative painting -- and uses meditation as a tool to slow down. Throughout his mindful movements both in his garden studio and afield as he transverses cities, he explores qualities of tactility, sensation and perceptionas they relate to bodily, mental and spatial states of awareness. Vera’s installations are an index of gestures that chart the relationship between objects, subjects and his own experiences in Mexico City, Istanbul and the various places in which he finds himself. Through his study and practice of self-awareness, cognitive science, and psychological research, his work embodies adynamic integration of painting and architecture with neuroaesthetics and spirituality.

Yoab Vera’s individual exhibitions include, Scent of Time: Horizontes Temporales, (Casa Gilardi curated by Juan Jose Kochen, organized by SAENGER Galería, Mexico City, MX, 2024); Amanecí Otra Vez (El Castillete, Madrid, ES, 2023); Circadian Memories: Amar Pacífico (Make Room LA, Los Ángeles, CA, 2023); Pasajes Urbanos, curated by Ana Castella (Salón Acme, CDMX, 2022) y Haptic Contemplative Painting (New Wight Gallery, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 2021). Furthermore, he has participated in several group exhibitions, such as And The Night Flowers Open (Andrea Festa Fine Art, Rome, IT, 2023); Five Years, curated by Raúl I.Lima (Akademie der Bildender Kunst, Wien, Vienna, AT, 2023); Things Seen, curated by Patrick Zapien (Make Room LA, LosAngeles, CA, 2023); Nature Holds a Mirror, curated by Ambar Quijano (Casa Astronoma, Mexico City, MX, 2023); Way Home, curated by Chengxi Hu, China (Consorcio de Arte Latinoamericano, Shanghai, CN, 2022); Light Touch, LA Dreams, curated byEmilia Yin (CFHILL, Estocolmo, SE, 2022), Terms of Belonging (GAVLAK Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. 2022), amongst others. In 2024, he will have his first solo exhibition in New York, NY at Alexander Berggruen and in Rome, IT at Andrea Festa Fine Art. Likewise, he has been resident at El Castillete, Madrid, Spain (2023); in Roman Road, Berlin, Germany (2023), at the School of Fresco Painting and Vernacular Architecture of Oaxaca (2022) and is going to participate at the Duplex Residency in Lisbon, Portugal in early 2024. He was awarded the New York Community Trust Award in Painting and Poetry (2021) and the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation Painting Prize (2019). In addition, Vera has been a beneficiary of the Fundación Jumex Scholarship (2019-2021) and the Moss Painting Full Scholarship (UCLA, 2018-2021). His work belongs to private collections in Asia, the United States, Europe and Latin America. Yoab Vera is represented by SAENGER Galería in Mexico City and Make Room in Los Angeles.
Exhibitions
Art Fairs