Artist Talk: YaHaddy Njie

Transcending Language:

YaHaddy's SMP presentation revealed a lot about her artwork. She has created a very unique way to express herself without using words, but rather using intense black and white lines and designs.

YaHaddy explained that her artwork is a quest to find herself, which she has found is nearly impossible as the only constant is change. She explained that she has different identities depending on the situation that she is presented and it is precisely these identities that she seeks to document with her drawings. The colors represent her internal and external feelings, and she explained that black represents the unknown and white represents actually being.

I really like the idea of trying to portray one's identity with something other than words, and other than dress, something that is unique to that person only, and I feel that this can only be found in some form of art. Words are often limiting, but I feel that through using her own medium, YaHaddy found something that is completely unique to her. Her own creations and depictions of who she is that can only be fully interpreted by her, yet put her out there for the public to see and to make what they will of it.

The fact that she used different languages to write the titles is interesting as well. By using different languages she makes the interpretation of her art less available to the public, forcing them to make effort to get to know her identity in the painting that they view, because in order to read the title, they must translate it themselves. I was lucky enough to talk to her and she revealed the meanings behind the titles, and when the translation is applied to the painting, it makes a lot of sense and you can see more of what was going on at the time.

Another thing that I thought was very interesting, was how she switched mediums completely and made a sort of film which was a mix of her own images as well as certain foreign exchange students. The effect was that each of them was talking in their own language about their identity and the different dialects mixed together was very interesting to hear. Her works were sort of swirling around the images of the students as well, which reflected the theme of transcending language very well, as the words seemed to have a swirling effect along with her original artwork.

I really enjoyed YaHaddy's work and I would be interested in trying it myself some day, when I have a chance to somehow meditate on who I am at the time. I like that she cited The Heart of Understanding as an influence for her work, because as we are empty of the separate self, we are actually full of everything.