Afia Zecharia's exact year of birth remains unknown. She was born in Yemen, married and had seven children. She came to Israel in 1950, and lived with her husband in Kafr al-Bassa on whose land the town of Shlomi was erected. Following her husband's death, she moved to a public housing block in Shlomi, and ultimately spent her last years living with her daughter in Nes Ziona.

- The work -
In Yemen, according to her family, Zecharia painted on the walls of her
house, but in Israel her husband objected. She resumed painting only after
his death in the apartment where she lived alone. She used car paints
which she bought in Nahariya, and gradually covered the walls of the
house (including the ceiling and part of the f loor), with colorful, mostly
abstract painting-hatchwork, stars, circles, lines and dots-interspersed
with seeming self-portraits. The dominant colors are yellow, red, and black.
Chickens and dolls, which she bought and later decorated in keeping with
the general coloration of the house, are placed on the f loor. The dolls
resemble Yemenite brides, and the general look calls to mind traditional
Yemenite decorations, although the coloration also sends one to the Far
East, and the nature of the painting-to Aboriginal painting. The painted
apartment she left behind in Shlomi is a magnif icent bubble, a hermetic
inner world which ref lects an uncontrollable outburst of creativity in the
least expected places and circumstances.