Create-Destroy-Recreate: Yemonja Smalls

Mixed media artist Yemonja Smalls says, “What’s fun about working in wood, especially in setting it up, is things move around. You know, you might set it one way and then shift by accident, touch it, nip it on the end of the table, and things start shifting around and it’s still beautiful.

“My process is really about taking something that’s solid – could be a print with beautiful flowers on it – and then taking it apart, deconstructing it. The process is therapeutic for me. I might pull some fabric from [one work] then I might take some wood from over here and it becomes part of a new picture.

“It’s just like life, where something beautiful gets taken apart and then it has to get put back together. And you might not have all the pieces to put it back together the same way it was initially. But in the creative process, I can take something apart and reimagine it in a different way.”

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https://www.yemonjapaints.com/