YoYo Lander: Between the Quiet, Selected Works from 2019 to 2024

Organized by Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture.

Known for her portraits of solitary African diasporic subjects, contemporary artist YoYo Lander captures visual form via a psychological and empathetic drive to understand her subjects, not only through the features of their physical bodies but also through moments in which introspection prompts them to most fully reveal themselves. As a self-taught painter and collagist, Lander highlights the multifacetedness of Black identity while also exploring the expressive aspects of the human figure through which gesture, line, posture, and color convey meaning.

Her first mid-career retrospective, YoYo Lander: Between the Quiet, Selected Works from 2019-2024, presents a curated selection of figurative and experimental abstract collages from private and public collections around the country. The exhibition invites viewers to reflect on vulnerability and the concept of presence while showcasing the ideological depth with which Lander approaches image-making.

YoYo Lander is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work explores the complexity of the human body, exploring its beauty, strength, and vulnerability through intricately crafted collages. Her art is a dynamic meditation on movement and form, where she captures the subtle details of posture and expression with a keen sense of observation. Lander's signature technique combines layers of hand-cut stained watercolor paper on top of stained watercolor backgrounds, creating rich, textural "bodyscapes" that convey both emotional depth and visual energy. The result is a striking series of multi-hued compositions that evoke a profound sense of presence and resilience. Through her evocative and layered approach to collage, she creates a compelling dialogue about identity, the body, and the human experience, captivating viewers worldwide with her distinctive visual language.

Lander's work has garnered both national and international acclaim, with exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Stockholm, Brussels, Singapore, Paris, Switzerland, South Africa, and Dubai. Her works are part of prestigious public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the International African American Museum in Charleston, SC, the Artistic Museum of Contemporary Art in Wales, the California African American Museum, and the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame. Additionally, her work is held in private collections, including DeWoody's Bunker Art Space and the Petrucci Art Foundation.