Interview: Artist Yara El Safi

'Mary and Magdalene' by Yara El Safi

Emerging artist Yara El Safi joins us today. Yara was born in Tripoli, Lebanon and moved to Windsor at the age of nine. She is currently a student at Walkerville Collegiate Institute and its Walkerville Centre for the Creative Arts program (formerly the Windsor Centre for the Creative Arts, or WCCA).

El Safi's work draws inspiration from her Lebanese heritage, and currently focuses on fabric as a restrictive and oppressive. She's exploring the theme by using the materiality of textiles in conjunction with luxurious, sensual imagery, and design elements to denote liberation. Additionally, El Safi finds inspiration from other artists. She writes:

My work focuses on the female form, movement and beauty. These figures are usually wrapped or surrounded by patterns appropriated from multiple sources, such as wallpaper, cloth and textures. The visuals of repeated manufactured patterns versus the curvaceous figural brush strokes are very stimulating to me. A few artists that work with the idea of flat patterns versus three-dimensional figures inspire some of my work. Gustav Klimt has been a huge inspiration to a lot of my multimedia works and paintings. 
 

'The Kiss' by Gustav Klimt

I spoke with El Safi about being an emergent artist in Windsor, the themes of her work and what inspiration she draws from Klimt.


As an emerging artist, how could the arts community help you develop?

I feel that the arts community is a huge part of the city, and being a developing emerging artist and witnessing the well-adjusted arts community in Windsor it helps me feed and develop my own sense of style and see what people are doing in this post postmodern era.

What are some of the facets of your theme that you would like to explore in more depth?

At this point in my work and my development I've only currently began to see and develop certain themes. Currently I'm exploring the concepts of veiling with multiple mediums, such as fabric, paint, and patterns, and that specific theme is what I would like to continue to explore in more depth for the next little while and see where it takes me.

What are some of the ways Klimt's work inspires or influences your own?

Gustav Klimt has been a huge influence in my work because of the way he shows decadence, luxury and sexuality in his work. I attempt to emulate his way of using gold and patterns in his paintings, go beyond with that of luxury and sensuality concept by freezing a moments or feelings with a figure or two, and drape with tactile elements so the audience is seduced by the idea of touch.


Is there anything else that you would like to say to our readers?

Windsor may be one of those cities that eyes pass by because we are not spoken about worldwide, but we are a city of talent and great minds secretly hidden within the world. It's definitely is one of those cities that you must have enhanced sense to experiences its beauty.

Thank you for joining us, Yara!