About
Amalya Nini was born in 1948 in Israel to a family of Yemenite origins.
She spent her childhood in a small Yemenite village in central Israel and studied painting in Israel at Bat Yam Art institute. In 1973 she moved to the United States of America with her parents where she continued to enrich and widen her skills in various art courses.
As early as her childhood, Amalya remembers being inspired by the beauty surrounding her. Orange tree groves and rolling hills, fields covered with beautiful flowers in spring time, the livestock and the numerous fruits and flowers her family grew, were, and still are, the main inspiration for her art.
Throughout her early years she traveled around the world, widening her horizons towards different cultures and landscapes, as well as continuously nourishing her hunger for art in museums in the shade of the great masters of the past. Art, Nature and any form of beauty were a constant drive to find her own language.
Amalya's love for the Jewish art stemmed from her upbringing in the rural Yemenite community, rich in Biblical tradition and folklore. She is today considered a pioneer in the field of reviving the art of Paper Cut in the Jewish Art. The ancient origins of this art form arrive from the far-east. Throughout history the techniques of the east were brought to Europe and were adopted by Jewish artists.
Today Amalya's masterful Paper Cuts combine a long and rich history of her predecessors, together with a fresh palette of colors, which are a personal translation to the flowers of her own garden and the seasonal lights. Without disregarding her rich history, she has a unique voice in the art of Judaica. Amalya has been featured in many art exhibitions and galleries throughout of the US and Israel, and her works hang proudly in the abodes of many world leaders.
She is a mother of two wonderful children, and lives and works in a small picturesque house nestled in the Jerusalem hills in the village of Zur Hadassah, where she toils tirelessly over her gardens, both the one outside her window, and the ones on her floating papers and parchments.
Amalya at Work: