Yasmin believes that art is a strong indicator of the soul of a civilization and its people, that it is a living link between the mundane and the majestic, that it can communicate across divides, and that it amplifies both sublime and disturbing aspects of life. Typically, her work is in thematic series –(In Praise of African Spirits, Justice or Just-Us, Limitations as Opportunities, Internal Landscapes)-- that depict issues of consciousness, inequities, interconnectedness, hopefulness, and joy. She authored a book on the development of art and consciousness, entitled, Heart Visions.
Artist Statement
The experiences as African-ancestried people living in the hegemonic inequities of the US can foster epistemological realities of ofttimes greatly warranted suspicion and cynicism, but those inequities do not define the sum total of the diasporic African people in the US.
Yasmin states that is important for her to remember as an artist and a human being to live and create in the spirit of Iwa rere, (good character) Ubuntu, (our humanity is unambiguously defined by how we see and honour the humanity of others), and in unapologetic hopes they situate in her soul the energy to struggle against that which is wrong with the world.
Yasmin’s paintings both decry injustices and celebrate beatific conditions of being alive. She hopes they express the capacious magnificence and munificence of Africans at the table of humanity.
