Tiwani Contemporary presents The Sweetest Taboo, the gallery’s second solo exhibition with Michaela Yearwood-Dan. The London-based artist’s work reflects on subjectivity and individual identity as forms of self-determination. Whilst her work may be underpinned by an expansive and multivalent repertoire of cultural signifiers borrowing freely from blackness, healing rituals, flora, texting, acrylic-nails, gold-hoops, carnival culture, these reference points enable her to present and privilege the variance of her own experience. As such, her work refuses to be framed by narrow expectations of racial or gendered notions of collective identity and history. She defamiliarises many of those reference points in her work resisting the clichés and strictures of representation.
Recently the artist has been thinking about the priorities for affirming spaces of self and collective actualization, specifically Poc and queer space(s), community needs, and desires, that include her own. Projected and inscribed upon the large-scale paintings, extracts of Yearwood-Dan’s experiences, influences, personal thoughts, and questions commingle with abstracted and botanical gestures and marks that border, lead towards, and give way to speculative clearings; spaces and gaps that can be filled with utopic imaginings. The works remain vested in holding and debating the real-life politics and cultural demands of femme, black and queer individuals in the world coming together as communities, manifesting and nurturing critical, safe, and joyous environments.
Drawing solely from her own experiences, throughout this body of work, the artist continues to explore the multifaceted nature of love through a theoretical and uncomplicated lense, whilst holding space for elements of humor and nostalgic glances.
The Sweetest Taboo is a semi-immersive experience that migrates from the canvases into the space of the gallery, creating a topographic installation of ceramic sculptures and furniture that encourages visitors to contemplate, project, and spur plans to dream potential spaces into existence.
The show runs from 31 March – 26 April 2022 at the 9 Cork Street Gallery 3 9 Cork St, London W1S 3LL. Visit the gallery website for further details
Image: Michaela Yearwood-Dan, All I am is everything and nothing at all, 2022, Oil, pastels, and ink beads on canvas, 200 x 450 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary.
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