Photo by Mariah Hamilton
Artist, Designer, and Curator Kendra Yee is quickly building a following with her infectious and charming illustrations. Kendra’s work spans many mediums from ceramics, to textiles, to digital renderings, but her off-beat signature characters and style repeats itself in every form. Kendra’s sculptural work The Onlookingis currently on display at Drake Commissary. Get to know a side of Kendra and her work with these five quick questions!
How would you describe your practice in two sentences?
Big mess? Better work.
Do you have a process for goal setting when it comes to your visual art practice? Any major goals worth mentioning for the upcoming year?
Usually, I mark down important days on a calendar and forget about them until the day before, nothing beats a 24-hour art panic. I treated myself and bought a red agenda, where I’m actually attempting to keep track of important deadlines. I use to do it on my phone, but I think it’s better to switch off the tech. The agenda is (so far) working really well, but we will have to do a follow up in 2019. I have a residency coming up in March at Sparkbox in Prince Edward County and setting up an installation for the Chromatic festival in Montreal (it’s in an abandoned school)
We’re big believers in community building, and love to support and encourage programs like the zine workshop you helped to host with us back in August. Do you have any words of encouragement for folks who might be hesitant to participate in similar ongoing workshops?
I know we are all introverts here, but workshops are a great way to build knowledge or get introduced to a new skill. I nearly talked myself out of going to a workshop the other day! I ended up going in the end and meeting knew people (and there was pizza at the meeting, so dinner is always a bonus). Try and find a new workshop and go by yourself, I guarantee you’ll learn something new.
Tell us about the work you’re putting together for Drake Commissary!
At the Drake Commissary, there are these beautiful shadowed-boxes that have a mirrored backing. I’m experimenting with the highly reflective surfaces and creating these blue, laser cut characters. They will be floating in front of gold, vinyl buildings that are stuck on to the mirror back. I really want to experiment with all the different depths of material, having a balance between the moving reflections of the Commissary and the solid vinyl works.
Keep up with Kendra by following her on Instagram @kendrayee, see more of her work at kendrayee.com. Check out all of our Drake Art installations, inspiration, projects, and programming @thedrakeart.