Module 3: My Analysis of Yemoja by Laura James

 

Welcome back! Here is another artwork analysis. Today’s art was created by Laura James and the piece itself is called Yemoja. A little bit about Laura James is that she is Founder and executive director of the Bronx Visual Artist Directory and she is also a working artist and independent curator. Laura is a self-taught painter and illustrator and has been for almost 30 years. Her artwork throughout the years shows race and class in America and the Caribbean.

Now let’s get into the actual artwork Yemoja. In this piece in the center of the artwork we can see a beautiful woman with a stunning baby blue flowy dress and long gorgeous wavy hair floating in the middle water of what I could possibly think of as the ocean. The dress has a V line neck and above the line of the dress we can see what I think is a pearl necklace. The woman in both of her hands is holding a string that all along it has peacock feathers. On these feathers we can see it has an oval shape in the middle with a good mixture of purple and green. On the outside and on the flowy strings of the feathers we see a bright yellow. Now surrounding her upper body, we have somewhat of a yellow aura. Outside of the aura we can see what I can best describe them as grey coffee beans. Of course, they are not coffee beans but just to give you an idea of the shape. Now surrounding this woman, we have dark blue water, but we can see that on each side has six waves and at the tip of the wave the color blue starts to lighten up. Each wave is swirling in on her. On each of the waves we can see contour lines to make up the wave. Each line connecting to the top swirl. At the very top of the painting on the left side we have a gold strip curling in and on the right side we have another strip but this time it is blue with a tint of black like a gloom sky. On the bottom half of the water, we see a verity of fish. On the left side the very top fish is orange and then they start to level down under that line we have a purple fish and then side to side we have an orange and green fish. On the very bottom we have watermelon and fish interchanging. On the right side we have a purple fish on top and then on the next line we have again side by side a yellow and orange fish. This painting has so much emotion to it. It gives me an empowering feeling to it. That women no matter the situation you are in can do anything. Showing us that we are strong. This artwork really is empowering!

Citations

“Sacred.” Laura James Fine Arts. Accessed January 28, 2021. https://www.laurajamesart.com/collections/sacred/.