Fall 2013, Volume 15

Art by Beth Kerschen

For Alternate Non-Flash Gallery


Image information:
Anatomical Chimp with Skull   Oil on panel  2011    16 x 12
Captured         Oil on panel     2013    24 x 24
Diomedes Devoured by his Horses (After Moreau)   Oil on panel     2009    24 x 30
Elegy   Oil on panel     2011    24 x 20
The Falconer   Oil on panel     2012    20 x 24 
Hummingbirds and Hand       Oil on panel     2013    16 x 16
Death and Hummingbirds       Oil on panel     2013    24 x 24
Madonna         Oil on panel     2003    24x18
Reptilian Hunger         Oil on Panel    2010    24 x 24
Trepanation     Oil on panel     2011    24 x 18
The Lizard Part of My Brain #2         Oil on panel     2011 19.75 x 19.75
The Feeding      Oil on panel     2011    20 x 16

About the Artist, Inspiration, and Working Process:
Sandra Yagi lives and works in San Francisco, CA.  She was born in Long Beach, California, and grew up in Denver, Colorado.

Her path to becoming an artist was indirect with some unexpected turns.  Yagi’s parents, who had been detained in relocation camps along with other Japanese-Americans during World War II, were very risk averse as a result of their experience.  They strongly discouraged her from studying art, and insisted that she focus on something practical.  Although she was always drawing when she was a child, her father’s admonition was “artists starve;” so she pursued an education in business and a career in finance/commercial banking.   She was inspired to return to art after meeting an older woman sculptor who advised her not to wait until she was too old and no longer had the energy for art-making.  She cut her hours back at the corporate job and signed up for continuing education courses in drawing and painting.   She left her career in banking in 2008 to be a full time artist.  

Yagi states that she has always loved science and is constantly struck by the beauty of natural forms.  Whether a subject is an animal or a human, she loves their structure and complexities.   Although surrealistic, her work blends elements of rationality and reason throughout, and incorporates her fascination with underlying form and anatomy.

Most paintings begin as a mental flash of an image of an animal in motion, or inspiration gleaned from viewing images of the natural world.  These images begin to coalesce into a seed for a painting, and the forming mental image is then examined for its symbolic meanings and then made more tangible in thumbnail sketches.

Much of her recent work includes imagery that is an exploration of the blurred line between humanity and our animal nature, as well as our complicated and troubled relationship with nature.  Her painting, "Diomedes Devoured by his Horses (After Moreau)" is based loosely on the myth of Diomedes, who, having raised carnivorous horses, was devoured by them.  It is an image of man twisting nature for an evil purpose, and then nature in turn destroying man.  She used anatomical figures, to make the myth appear almost scientific and therefore, fact-based.  

“Trepanation” portrays a skull, with strange hybrid deep-sea creatures exploding out of the skull.  It is a metaphor for the dark subconscious and madness that comes from within us. 

The painting “Elegy” depicts a skeleton, and perched on a shoulder and on his finger are two passenger pigeons.  Circling above him is a small flock of these beautiful birds.  This species of bird once flew in North American skies in gigantic flocks but, in the late 1800’s, were hunted in massive numbers and extinct in 1914.  This painting eulogizes them.  The skeleton symbolizes death – in this case – permanent death of an entire species.

Concise drawing is the critical foundation of each painting.  Yagi works in oil paints because of the transparent quality of many of the colors.  There are at least 4 layers of paint on each painting – first, the drawing, then a wash/underpainting of acrylic.  Often it’s a color that will reflect through the overlays of oil paint. Then, darks and mid tones are blocked in to establish major shadow areas.  Once that is dry, lighter colors, and lastly highlights and extensive details are added.

Yagi’s work is in numerous private collections, including Axl Rose, Ben Stiller, Gary Noguera and Robert Smith, Chris Vroom, Paul Ruscha, Robert C. Williams and Joan Williams, and Lee Unkrich.

 

 

BIO: Sandra Yagi lives and works in San Francisco, CA.  She was born in Long Beach, California, and grew up in Denver, Colorado.