Yasmin is an artist, educator, and curator working in San Francisco, CA. Inspired by the raw and animated imaginations of her young students, she utilizes kitschy materials and craft processes to address topics like misogyny, sexism, gender expression, and mental health. She is interested in the inherent meanings assigned to certain materials and how they can be appropriated to ignite intimate feelings and memories.
SWEET & LOW ARTIST STATEMENT
For most of my life I have struggled with depression. My emotions would show up with overwhelming intensity and so it seemed easiest to shut them out. It wasn’t until recently on my path to healing I began to understand the sweet, subtle magic of all my feelings. To address them and recognize them without becoming overburdened by them. To fully see them as an essential part of my life experience and a knowledgeable guide on my journey to self discovery. This body of work is a tangible visualization of the many feelings I have felt over the past six years and an homage to the hard work it takes to manage a mental health disorder.
Feelings can be uncomfortable and confusing but they are also the most authentic representation of who we are right now. Living with depression and high-functioning anxiety, my main goal is always to become the most me I can be because the intense disconnect between mind and body that results from having chronic mental health disorders can make that vision feel extremely clouded and distant. I create to remain present and give light to my emotions. The materials are like mediums or channels that I work with to communicate my feelings.
I have always been a very process oriented artist because the experience I have while creating the work - cutting, ripping, stitching, patching - is just as important as the final product. Designing and completing a fabric stitch piece is very similar to working through and resolving emotional trauma. I try my hardest to sit with my feelings and let them be a guide for what I make and how I will make it. There is a visceral quality unique to each material - a sort of history or memory embedded in them that we all feel when we look at them. Like a collage, I piece the different media together to best represent the mix of emotions I am feeling in the present moment. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it, but in the end I always learn to accept it because it is me.
Livestream opening
March 28, 2019
