GALLERY 3

Hannah Yata’s aesthetically beautiful images stand in a stark contrast to her darker subject matter. Inspired by psychology, religion, literature, and her experiences as a woman, the New York based artist calls upon the rich symbolism of the female figure, which she often combines with parts of animals, creating metaphorical hybrid characters. Placing these characters in intriguing scenarios, she explores the depths of our social psychology and draws parallels to modern day issues. In “Dancing in Delirium”, Hannah Yata's phantasmagorical female creatures and animals embody “the transformative, wild energy of the natural world, tainted with abuse of modern society”.

Delirium, as it relates to brain necrosis, is the last gasps of energy synapses that are sparking out.

“Dancing in a world of delirium” refers to a flailing, twirling, and searching of the being to grapple with the true nature of reality and the divorce of its roots from the Earth. With this new body of work, Yata offers a warning to her viewers to be more conscious, and be more present in the ways we interact with our world.  “To have a change in energy is a change in thinking- how we view one another, how we treat one another is how we treat the Earth,” Yata says. Her oil paintings are ripe with images of a spiritual paradise, her own strange and surrealistic Garden of Eden, in which nude forms merge and cohabitate with animals like tropical birds and mythological creatures. Psychedelic colors are used to convey a beautiful energy, while displays of dance and ritual reveal rebellion against a dark energy, such as industry and destruction.

 “Dancing, in my work, relates to a transformative experience- both ritualized and defiant- as a rebellion against energies that wish to contaminate and destroy the world.  It awakens the divinity in nature, the Lumen Naturae: “The light, the wisdom, the being of nature-”as spirits and personalities. The characters in my work embody the female as the mythological archetype, metaphorical unconscious, and as a character for Mother Earth. The defiant rites played out on the canvas challenge the sanity of our actions played out today- that one should modify, consume, and decimate the earth.  It evokes a sort of magical defiance in the face of human progress in a world that’s been pumped full of mind altering drugs, electromagnetic waves, sounds, distractions, and images."

HANNAH YATA

Hannah Faith Yata was born in 1989 and raised in a small town in Georgia. She is half Japanese and Caucasian. She grew up with a deep love of nature and animals passed down by the beautiful surroundings in the country and her mother. As a young adult, she studied feminism, psychology, and art in college. Graduating with a BFA in painting from the University of Georgia in 2012 she moved up to New York to focus on her work and how to put her ideas into paintings. In 2015, she was commissioned to do several works of art for musician B.o.B, which are now featured on his latest album: “Psycadelik Thoughtz.” In her own work, Yata seeks to interweave political ideas, (using nature, women, and feminism almost synonymously), environmental degradation, and themes of moral injustice into increasingly chaotic paintings. She uses masks from a mix of other cultures to speak to the different relationships that native tribes and cultures have with the earth, while giving anthropomorphic qualities and symbolism to the animals to speak their consciousness. The increasing psychedelic features to her work are inspired by beauty and the energy of nature, while communicating the anxiety and tension she feels brewing in the world. These elements are combined many times to celebrate the female form that denies objectification and exploitation of nature and interweaves them into grotesquely beautiful, surreal dreamscapes.