The Common Loon

Born in 1995 in Tehran, Iran, Yalda Sepahpour vividly remembers the wildlife and nature surrounding her. After moving to the US in 2014, she noticed how some strands of Western feminism take on a more crude tone. Instead of looking at the limitations of womanhood, Sepahpour offers a fresh view of the female condition as exuding an energy that is at once powerful yet delicate, forceful yet graceful alongside the beauty and fragility of femininity. From a young age she sought to express artistically what she saw as a space where woman and her natural habitat coexist in harmony; where the contours of the female body are reciprocated by forms and figures found in nature. Primarily through oil painting, but with many etchings, watercolors, linocuts and drawings along the way, Yalda’s budding vision acquired deep sensibility and quickly flourished into a compassionate reflection on the ever-expanding subject of femininity and its position in nature. The sheer size of her paintings exude a potency that demands to be seen, and envelopes the viewer: they are penetrative by nature. She puts this force to use by painting wildlife in extinction as a means to spark dialogue about our urgent role to preserve our interrelation with our habitat. She was still in the process of completing her art studies in Laguna College of Art and Design when she began painting as a full-time profession, and at each occasion superseded expectations which generated a higher demand for her work. As a result, her works now feature in prominent collections on an international scale.