feature: visual artist daniela yohannes explores the metaphysical on the road to self-discovery

“It’s our nature to categorize everything in our environment, and we do so even with our fellow human beings. It is this activity, which creates constructs. I’ve experienced the best and the worst from the outside gaze and for a long time it would startle me. I couldn’t understand this gaze. I would internalize everything the gaze implied and question it only to come up with negative ideas. I didn’t feel the way the ‘world’ viewed me; the two simply didn’t match up. Those ideas were much too simple; we are complex beings with so many components. That’s why I choose to see from a spiritual viewpoint and with my unique perspective. Spirituality limits no one, and when you have intimate experiences with the natural world, these are human experiences, not racial, gendered or political. This is what I decided to focus on, my human experience.” – Daniela Yohannes

Through my work, I paint fictional characters and narratives, which allow me to remove the social constructs placed upon me as a woman, an African, an immigrant. It’s not that I’m trying to separate myself from my story or my identity, but rather to carry these forward creating new mythology, philosophy and poetry- a new way of seeing. This is a liberating feeling – painting myself into the past, present and future; painting the evolution of my existence, leaving my mark while at the same time working though the emotional waves of life. There’s nothing more powerful to me than that.” – Daniela Yohannes

“Dreams have begun to play a major role in my work. They have become important experiences in which the lines between reality and illusion are blurred. When I dream, I can manipulate the entire universe. Don’t get me wrong, I can tell the difference between reality and the oneiric world, but the messages and encounters I’m experiencing are so deeply profound, it sometimes feels like they are coming from an outside source. These encounters are so revealing, they are hinting at me that ‘what is, isn’t’ and ‘what’s concrete, is not ‘ and that everything I can possibly imagine is possible. So at present, I’m drawing from these dream narratives, which give me complete autonomy.” – Daniela Yohannes

By Tip Jordan, AFROPUNK contributor