ANGELICA YANU

When did you first become interested in art?

I think I never really fully “discovered art”, it was always innately a part of my life as a child, art shaped my identity and how I communicate from the moment I was born. I grew up in a multiracial family of sculptors, painters, photographers and filmmakers. art was a part of my upbringing. I think the first time I discovered myself within art was in 2016 when I made my first landscape monotype print. And again in 2018 when I discovered a beautiful relationship between print and sculpture in my undergrad Thesis project, Iyeska.

How did you get to where you are today in your practice?

Hard work, practice, blood sweat and tears.. And most importantly my family, mentors and peers have shaped me into who I am and how I practice art. I have them to thank for being where I am today.

What has been the most challenging aspect of your art career?

Balancing life and staying focused. Finding a good and healthy relationship with your artistic career being your full-time job can subject you to feeling a sense of “burn out”, it’s important to learn your habits and adapt how you navigate your career with your mental health as a top priority. Over the years I have learned that how you relate to your process of making becomes transparent in the work you make, It’s important to remember who you are and why you make the work you make.

Where do you find inspiration?

Everywhere and everyone. Landscapes, people, relationships, language, traditional Lakota stories. I find the most inspiration in my family, my kin, my ancestors and sacred landscapes.

Any artists that inspire you at the moment?

I’ve been very obsessed with Vanha Lam’s work recently. Lam is a New York-based painter/sculptor whom neatly folds her paintings. Her work challenges and crosses the lines of traditional painting into paper sculptures that I find fantastic. She works in very similar ways that I do within monotype printmaking and sculpture.

What else should people know about you?

I am an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, from Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota.