Brick Feather Brick (Your Path is Worn)

© Yashua Klos. Image courtesy of the Ruth and Elmer Museum of Art at Hamilton College, Clinton,…

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Artist/Maker Yashua Klos (American, born 1977)

Date2018

MediumCollage with woodblock prints and graphite on paper

DimensionsSheet: 76 5/8 × 60 in. (194.6 × 152.4 cm) Frame: 82 3/4 × 65 3/4 × 2 3/4 in. (210.2 × 167 × 7 cm)

Credit LinePurchase, William G. Roehrick '34 Art Acquisition and Preservation Fund

Object number2019.1

Not on view

DescriptionIn Yashua Klos’s print-based collages, the artist draws, carves, and prints his own unique imagery and assembles it into a larger image, adding shading, color, or line work as individual elements are combined. Nevertheless, the artist is often referred to simply as a printmaker. Although this designation betrays the complex nature of his work, he welcomes the association with what he describes as “the incredible lineage of African American woodblock printers” that came before him. Beyond the materiality of Klos’s collages, the concept of “duality” is present in the majority of his pieces, evidenced by the way that geometric, abstract imagery intermingles with natural forms including vines, weeds, or in this case, feathers. This interaction is seen by the artist as symbiotic, an ode to the nature present even in urban environments. The inclusion of building materials also references urbanity, but for the artist, actually functions more as metaphorical structures or obstacles meant to be overcome. The faces breaking through physical boundaries in Klos’s collages, then, are in the act of overcoming injustices, especially those reinforced by the segregationist policies which have informed the very construction and makeup of neighborhoods across America, including Klos’s own boyhood home on the South Side of Chicago. These faces are usually based on someone known to the artist but rather than depicting strict likenesses these portraits become archetypes referencing the masks—both literal and figurative—we wear every day. As an artist primarily engaged in the seemingly ubiquitous genre of portraiture, Klos recognizes the way faces can act as mirrors to society, but he hopes his works function more so as proposals for future monuments or blueprints for survival. —Alexander Jarman, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Academic Outreach

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