shondaland | 7 Artists You Should Know Now

BY VIVIAN MANNING-SCHAFFEL

This painter and collage artist’s large, lush, lyrical works of fertile, disjointed botanicals and landscapes utilize layers of paint, ink, and embroidery to express her frustrations about marginalization. Based in London and inspired by Western, Japanese, and Chinese historical painting, Yearwood-Dan creates messages that are delivered through the lens of modern-day impressionism of sorts. Her vibrant scenery is seemingly captured in movement with a blend of deliberate, delicate strokes and expressive lines, augmented by embroidered observations about racial or gendered notions of collective identity and history that lend context to the romantic tumult. “My hope is that people engage with the understanding that Black women are nuanced, and that’s also reflected in the work they make and wide variety of subject matters and aesthetics they explore,” Yearwood-Dan tells Shondaland. “I want the viewer to really just look and spend time with the work, finding snippets of text and allowing those and the colorful motifs to mean something personal to them. I want them to trust what they feel when they look at the work and, of course, honor my intentions but also sit with how introspective it makes them feel.” A graduate of the University of Brighton, Yearwood-Dan did a Harper’s Bazaar UK cover using Margaret Atwood’s poetry in a collaboration with the writer last year, and has shown at galleries including London’s Tiwani Contemporary and, most recently, at Marianne Boesky in New York.