Artist Portfolio Magazine’s 10 Art Competition

Yerkezhan Abuova – New York, NY
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Artist Bio: I moved to the United States in first grade and currently live in New York City, although I am originally from Kazakhstan, in Central Asia. I have a twin sister and have been studying art since early childhood. I have experience in a variety of mediums including drawing, oil painting, sculpture, design, animation and installation. I attended programs at the Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University, Parsons, Pratt Institute, The School of Visual Arts, Central Saint Martins, The Fashion Institute of Technology, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Ashcan Art Studio and was part of a project that brought art materials and resources to children in Uganda. I participated in the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards for multiple years, which allowed me to exhibit my work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as facilities in Washington D.C. I also participated in the Doodle For Google Competition where I won the regional award for New York City. During the last three summers, I have assisted several working artists in America, London, and Central Asia – including Michael Armitage, Zsofia Schweger, and Faig Ahmed.

Artist Statement: I remember when we moved our furniture from my hometown in Kazakhstan to America. It looked completely out of place because our old furniture looked as if it was meant to hold my family, and the American furniture looked as if it was meant to hold someone else. Feeling out of place caused me to understand the importance of my surroundings, which led me to create new stories and environments in seemingly ordinary places. My work explores the feeling of home and how people constantly move on to different places without remembering the past. Every place has its own history: the people who used to live there, the events that happened there, and what is left of it today. It is important to consider not only the events that people can see, but also the invisible ones. Some of my artworks are about places that have been left behind, while others are about creating new places. In both cases, I am interested in the stories that fill up the absences created by abandonment.
In my work, I create homes for the memories of people who have departed and the objects they have left behind. Memories are temporary because when they are forgotten, they disappear, which is why some aspects of my artworks are transparent or hard to see. I want to suggest what happens that people don’t know about, like when the refrigerator doors are closed and the ordinary aspects of our daily lives change completely.