Ya LaFord was born in New York City as a first-generation American of Jamaican descent, with a culturally rich background that inspires themes of memory, space, time, and human connection in her work. As an interdisciplinary artist, she bridges her manifold creative forces into the profoundly cohesive catalog that has brought her success in the contemporary art world. Her mosaic of artistic skill is reflected in a signature labyrinth, a motif representative of the interconnectedness and transformation that has defined her artistic journey.
LaFord’s latest collection, the Azure Series, recalls recurring themes in her work through a singularly spiritual lens. By employing pigmentation derived from ancient healing stones, a layer of tangible mysticism is added to her already ethereal labyrinth. The Azure Series is characterized by bright blue hues that invite the viewer's gaze into its web of color, allowing for a deeply meditative experience. By facilitating a connection between viewers and the ancient wisdom of the healing stones, LaFord sanctifies the Azure Series as not only an assemblage of artwork, but as a collection of enchanted talismans.
The process of weaving together ancestral memory is not singular to the Azure Series, but rather is a signature creative process strung through LaFord’s catalog. Here, she concentrates her exploration of memory into a primary creative intention, showcasing her ongoing practice as a now acquired expertise. The series balances contemporary expression with archaic history by harmoniously interlacing her abstract compositions with ancient pigments. This contrast in historical art practices facilitates an exploration of time—guiding the viewer through a labyrinth and beyond the canvas, back to the very medium that formed the work: ancient healing stones.
By concentrating a primary creative inspiration into a single collection, the Azure Series becomes a magnum-opus in Laford’s catalog. Laford accounts her goals as an artist as to inspire introspection, explore metaphysical realms of time and memory, and to create works that resonate on both personal and collective levels– all which are accomplished with a stroke of genius in the Azure Series.
Written by Anna Ackerman