The Painted House- Afya Zaharia

******Temporarily the house is not open to visitors*****

A small Amidar (housing association) apartment in Shlomi has become by means of the unusual talent of Afia Zacharia, an artistic creation.

Afia was born in Yemen and was widowed at the age of 80 and felt that she had been released from her husband’s prohibitions to engage in what she loved most of all – to paint.

She started to paint as she painted in the days of her youth in Yemen. Painting lessened her loneliness and her creativity burst out from everywhere. She started with the walls of the house. Later she moved on to the windows, doors and ceilings. Her paintings remind you of psychedelic paintings, some of them magical and some of them depicting fables and kingdoms.

The colours and shapes envelop the visitor from all sides and it is impossible to remove your eyes from them, which are attracted to the bold colours, the circular and winding lines and the geometric shapes.

When she had covered all the walls up to the ceiling, the doors and the windows and the house became one big artwork, she started to paint dolls in her image with traditional Yemenite female motifs. Only after her death aged 94 was the hidden treasure discovered in her little apartment.

The Shlomi Council took the house under its wing and turned it into an extraordinary tourism site open to visitors.

Coordinated in advance at a cost of NIS 15 per visitor.