Lives and works in Los Angeles, California
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Dysmorphic and unnerving, stitched in velvet, imitation leather, or covered in liquid rubber, Yellin’s forms conjure a language from another time or place, a tongue that folds the body and desire. Many hang from the walls or stand independently, where they vacillate between the mutated and the vestigial - the xenolithic and the abject. Acting as surrogates for thought and the psyche, each one being a subconscious strain of emotion and fantasy, the works augur a new flesh. Staking out new representative territory for desire and the other, these perverse figures are present in their alterity.
"I Love You I Love Me", Concrete, Velvet, Moss, Stuffing, 12H x 41D x 45W inches, 2019
"Writhe" , Velvet, Stuffing, Copper Piping, 55x12x17in, 2019
Installation view of Velvet Concrete at M. Le Blanc Gallery, 2018
"Surrogate", Velvet, Stuffing, Scrunchies, 60 x 8 x 36in, 2018
"Sheila", Urethane, Leatherette, Stuffing, Dress form Stand, 60x19x19in, 2017
Installation view of It'll Come at Night Gallery, 2017
The artist's studio, 2020
"Altar II", Nylon, Stuffing, Copper, Dimensions Variable, 2019
"Altar", Nylon, Copper, Dimensions Variable, 2019
"Comfort", Velvet, Stuffing, 56x55x16in, 2019
About the Artist
Isabel Yellin (b. 1987 in New York City) lives and works in Los Angeles. Yellin received her M.A. in Painting from the Royal College of Art in London in 2014. Recent solo and group exhibitions of her work include Altar (2019) at Mandranova in Residence in Sicily, Show Me As I Want To Be Seen (2019), Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, Cuddle Puddle, Althuis Hofland Fine Arts in Amsterdam, All Hands on Deck (2018) at Ben Maltz Galleries at Otis College in Los Angeles, It'll Come (2017) at Night Gallery in Los Angeles, and Summertime* (2015) at Galerist in Istanbul. Yellin's practice has been the focus of articles and reviews in The New Yorker, Artforum, and LAWeekly, among other print and online publications. In 2018, Yellin received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.
isabelyellin.com