The text on the image reads
Black Lives Matter
Amplify Them
yashuaklos.net
@yashuared
“There are so many ways we survive, and in the resilience we can become more expansive—even more human....”. —Yashua Klos
Today, I want to copy and paste an entire interview for you to read because of the amount of sense this artist makes and how much perspective he shares in that interview. So, here's a link instead because, you know, ethics. The quote in the image above is from that interview.
Okay, onward!
Yashua Klos works in multiple mediums including wood block printing, collage (incorporating wood block printing), and sculpture. He has no qualms about scale in either direction. He does what is necessary for the work. This man understands depth and perspective (visual and otherwise) and storytelling. Mr. Klos has an eye for impact. His collages look and feel as if they surge off the wall.
While delivering these welcome eye punches, he is drawing from and building myth to great purpose. In his own words:
Myth is layered in my work.... In America, “history” is a mix of fact and propaganda—which make a sort of myth. The myths here are obviously constructed to preserve a hierarchy and mitigate power. We have statues and monuments erected to concretize these myths. Ancient cultures have left behind the architecture and art of their mythical identities as well.
In my late teens I began to reclaim histories and myths around Black identity since I felt I was deprived of a true telling of history through the Chicago Public School system. This was my introduction to Afrocentrism in the mid 90’s—a project based around an African American reclamation of a heroic African identity. Myth in this sense is a way to dramatize and concretize lost histories.
—Yashua Klos, Newfound.org article on As Above, So Below
All right. I'm gonna stop now. Anything I can say about his work is better said by him or realized by your own eyes looking at it.