YOSSI BEN ABU

Paper. Color. Light.

Calm from across the room.
Thousands of folds up close.

Hand-cut, hand-folded paper reliefs by California artist Yossi Ben Abu.

Represented by galleries across the United States. Collected for private, corporate, and hospitality spaces. About the artist ↗

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The Threshold of Light, frontal view of an orange, olive, and cream folded-paper relief
FrontalAngledDetail
The Threshold of Light · Frontal viewOpen image ↗

Selected work

Paper. Color. Light.

Explore each work, one view at a time.

Earlier explorations

Previous designs

Discover the collections that shaped the work.

Explore the series ↗
Radiant ↗Gradients ↗Uneven ↗Eclipse ↗Swirls ↗Elements ↗Colors ↗Canopies ↗Patterns ↗Absence ↗
The Threshold of Light in a room visualization
The Threshold of LightRoom visualization, not an installation photograph.

Art in a space

A different view,
with every step.

Light catches the folds as you move through a room, revealing the depth behind the color.

For a home, a collection, or a design project, contact a representing gallery to discuss dimensions, availability, and placement.

Discuss a project ↗
Yossi Ben Abu in an apron at a studio worktable with paper and tools
Yossi Ben Abu

The artist

Built by hand.
Shaped by light.

Yossi Ben Abu creates sculptural wall reliefs from paper. His background in architecture and graphic design informs a practice rooted in geometry, repetition, and the small variations within a pattern.

Individual elements are cut, folded, and assembled by hand. Together, they create surfaces that shift with the light and the viewer’s position.

Represented by galleries across the United States, Yossi’s work is held in private collections and installed in hospitality, corporate, and residential spaces.

Selected placements include Hotel Cerro in San Luis Obispo, The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s Evrima, P&O Cruises’ Arvia, and buildings in San Francisco and New York City.

Follow the work on Instagram ↗
Biography ↗Artist statement ↗

Selected art fairs

SCOPE Miami BeachCONTEXT Art MiamiLA Art ShowSuperfine! Art Fair
San Francisco Art Fair ↗Art on Paper New York ↗Texas Contemporary Art Fair

For designers & art advisors

Bring the work into your project.

For a residential, hospitality, or corporate project, contact the studio or a representing gallery for current availability, dimensions, framing, and commission information.

Include your location, wall dimensions, preferred artwork or series, and timeline. The studio can help you identify the information needed for your selection.

Discuss a project ↘Representing galleries ↗

Contact the studio

A work you love.
A space you imagine.

Ask about a piece, explore a commission, or tell us what you have in mind.

For a particular work, include its title. For a project, a little about your space, location, and timing is a helpful start.

info@yossibenabu.com ↗Find a representing gallery ↓

Your inquiry

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Galleries & inquiries

Find a work.
Start a conversation.

Collectors, interior designers, and art advisors are welcome. Contact a gallery below for current availability and artwork specifications.

For a project inquiry, include the artwork title, location, wall dimensions, and your timeline.

Connect with Yossi on Instagram ↗
Stephanie Breitbard Fine ArtsSan Francisco, CAJ Williams Fine ArtDallas, TXEDNA ContemporarySan Luis Obispo, CAJules PlaceBoston, MAChandler Art GalleryHouston, TX

Yossi Ben Abu

Biography

Yossi Ben Abu is an Israeli-born artist based in Irvine, California, working primarily in paper. He builds sculptural wall reliefs from repeated geometric forms, using their depth, color, and arrangement to create surfaces that appear to shift with changing light and the viewer’s position.

Born and raised in Tel Aviv in a family of Moroccan heritage, Ben Abu developed an early interest in geometric patterns, from the tiles of Jaffa to architectural details and the motifs he encountered through his family. He studied architecture and worked in the field before moving into web and graphic design. His experience as a deaf artist has made close visual observation central to his approach to communication and artmaking.

Ben Abu develops his paper works through hand-drawn studies and three-dimensional computer models, which he translates into templates for cutting, folding, and assembling by hand. Repeated forms become twisting fields, circular structures, and images that resolve as the viewer moves back from the individual elements. Across monochromatic compositions and saturated color gradients, small changes in angle and arrangement create shifting impressions of depth and movement.

His work has been exhibited at SCOPE Miami Beach, CONTEXT Art Miami, the LA Art Show, Art Market San Francisco, San Francisco Art Fair, and Art on Paper New York. He is represented by Stephanie Breitbard Fine Arts, J Williams Fine Art, EDNA Contemporary, Jules Place, and Chandler Art Gallery.

His work is held in private collections and installed in hospitality, corporate, and residential settings. Placements include Hotel Cerro in San Luis Obispo, The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection’s Evrima, P&O Cruises’ Arvia, and buildings in San Francisco and New York City.

Yossi Ben Abu

Artist statement

I use geometry to give physical form to feelings that are difficult to express in words. I am drawn to the way a repeated shape can establish order, and how a change in its angle, proportion, or position can unsettle that order. A precise structure can begin to suggest movement, tension, or calm.

My interest in pattern began with looking closely at my surroundings: shop windows in Tel Aviv, old tiles in Jaffa, architectural details, and the Moroccan motifs that were part of my family’s visual world. Being deaf has shaped my attention to what I see and my interest in communicating through form. I continue to find ideas in ordinary surfaces, from a piece of fabric to pavement or a metal structure.

My background in architecture informs how I develop a work. I begin with sketches, explore the form in a three-dimensional computer model, and translate it into flat templates. In the studio, I cut, fold, and assemble the individual paper elements by hand. The work takes shape gradually, through the accumulation of many small parts. I value the concentration this process requires and the moment when those separate parts become a larger image or pattern.

Paper remains central to my practice because such a familiar material can become spatially complex. Its folded surfaces catch and interrupt light. Monochromatic works reveal small differences in depth and shadow; color introduces another way to guide the eye, through gradual transitions or a sharp change between neighboring forms.

I want the work to reward sustained looking. From a distance, a composition may read as a continuous surface. Up close, its construction becomes visible, and another rhythm emerges. As the light changes or the viewer moves, different edges and colors come forward. That changing encounter is part of the work.