Artist Of The Day – Newark Based Artist Layqa Nuna Yawar

“Trade Dollar”

Acrlylic and graphite on wall.
Temporary Installation at the
Morris Museum,.
Morristown, NJ
2021

Artist Of The Day – Newark Based Artist Layqa Nuna Yawar

ABOUT TRADE DOLLAR

A mural painted at the Morris Museum for “Urban Art New Jersey: On and Off the Streets”.

This is the US golden dollar coin, minted in 2000 and designed by artist Gienna Goodcare after the model @randyl_teton ~ it depicts a representation of #Sacagawea and her son. This coin is also widely used in Ecuador due to the dollarization that happened the same year it was minted. Legal tender no longer reflects local history nor national identity in Ecuador, but some people see themselves reflected in this image, while most feels it’s weight and influence in many forms to this day.

 

ABOUT ARTIST LAYQA NUNA YAWAR

Layqa Nuna Yawar (b. Cuenca, Ecuador 1984) is a public artist and multidisciplinary storyteller based in the unceded lands of the Lenni-Lenape: current day Newark, NJ. His work is best known for large scale community-based murals, intricate portrait paintings and multimedia projects that center the complex narratives of immigrant, black, indigenous and subaltern populations. His artwork aims to disrupt established semiotic systems and reimagine them in service of shared liberation and a better future.

Layqa’s name is an invention that honors and reclaims the Kichwa-Kañari side of his mixed descent. His praxis is driven by the act of reclaiming history as well as the inherent rupture and repair of the immigrant experience. His work exists at the intersection between migrant alienation and belonging, cross-cultural identity and decolonization, and between private and public space.

His work has been recently awarded a Monument Lab Research Residency, a Creative Catalyst Fund Fellowship by the City of Newark, and a Moving Walls Fellowship by Open Society Foundations among other awards. Layqa has held multiple teaching residencies, including projects with the United Nations World Food Programme, Casita Maria and Rutgers University. He has exhibited at El Museo del Barrio, the Newark Museum, and The Zimmerli Art Museum, among others.

His murals can be found in cities and communities around the world.

 

MURALS

Futurología Puruhá

Polytechnic School of Chimborazo (Escuela Superior Politécnica de Chimborazo) ESPOCH Library Building
Riobamba, Ecuador
2021

*Futurologiá Puruhá* is a new mural for the @festivalnumu in Riobamba, the heart of Ecuador and the Andes.

This mural was conceived in collaboration with the university, its students, faculty and as a reflection of local culture, history and my own experience during this mural festival. The people depicted are students and the main portrait is based on a young local artist, @dabf_ec whose image is now a monumental proxy for the act of imagining and looking at the stars.

The mural is a result of my ignorance, an act of reflection upon a part of the world I have never been to. This investigation created a series of symbols and imagery pulled from local history, culture, geography and fauna – inspiring and grounding totems for my inner self.

This mural is a question and hopefully a mirror to some part of its audience. A question that asks were are we going in the future? Where are we now? Where do we come from and who are you in this long narrative toward an imagined future?

“S.T.E.A.M. dreams”

for @acartsfoundation @create48ac and @boysandgirlsclubac and in #AtlanticCity at 3030 Atlantic Ave.
2021

This project slowly progressed during the pandemic and ended beautifully. While painting this mural in a predominantly black, brown and immigrant section of the city, it reminded me of the process and drive behind it: mainly the immense power of imagination versus the inequities and injustices people like myself face when it comes to access and the practice of science, engineering, technology, the arts and mathematics.

How powerful it is to be able to dream. How important it is to be able to tell your own story, to own your history, to speak to your ancestors across time and memory, to reclaim knowledge, space, ancient medicines, erased achievements and inventions.

 

Sankofa
Newark, NJ
2020

Legacy
Newark, NJ
2019

a new mural for @greatoakslegacy high school at 17-19 Crawford St, #Newark, #NJ based on workshops made with students that center a message of community uplift across generations and featuring a mix of students silhouettes and the portraits of #IndiraGandhi #JackieRobinson #FrederickDouglass and #MalcolmX

“This Guiding Light”
Newark, NJ
2020

This mural was made by myself in collaboration with photographer Chrystofer Davis (@dolo_foto) and poet Jasmine Mans (@poetjasminemans). This mural documents both the collaborative creative power present in Newark today, and the collective power seen manifested in protests across the USA this year. Movements for black lives, against voter suppression, racism, xenophobia and for social and climate justice overlapped as bodies and voices came out to the streets during a pandemic. The same overlap is present in the work of artists and culture workers as they reflect and witness these moments: a guiding light toward a better tomorrow. This is the content of the mural and it is represented in the images captured by Chrystofer Davis across New Jersey, the poem created by Jasmine Mans and the final interpreted mural composition.

This project was made in partnership with Mayor Baraka’s (@rasjbaraka) Social Justice Public Art initiative, #MuralsforJustice. The murals are an initiative led by City of Newark Arts and Cultural Affairs Director fayemi shakur (@fayemi_ ), to create art that speaks to calls for racial justice, equity and representation.

OUR BODIES WILL NOT

BE DISMANTLED,

OUR MAGIC IS NOT

FOR THEIR FOOLISH WONDER.

THIS LIGHT WILL GUIDE

OUR CHILDREN,

BLIND OUR ENEMIES,

THEIR DESIRE TO DESTROY US

WILL BE THE JOKE

AMONGST GENERATIONS.

FOR “HE”

HAS A SONG FOR US.

Find murals and more art by Layqa Nuna Yawar HERE

Find more art previously featured on Diabolical Rabbit HERE