Yana Lehey’s Face Up is a series of large-scale watercolour portraits of youth climate activists presented at The Mill for SALA Festival 2020. Inspired by the energy and drive of youth climate activists from around the world, Yana has produced a body of work that celebrates determination and conviction. The series of larger-than-life portraits are arresting in their scale and in their stance. Yana has taken inspiration from Australian artist Cherry Hood, creating intensity and conveying emotion through the glowering expression of the subjects’ faces. The levity of these large-scale works seeks to emulate the importance of their work. Yana has also focused on Indigenous activists, highlighting and centring their voices within the climate change discussion.
Photos: Morgan Sette
Image: Yana Lehey, Face up (installation view), 2020, Photographer: Morgan Sette.
I decided to portray a very real and existential rage felt by a highly driven, but consistently dismissed group of people. This is especially true of the majority of the people portrayed in the Face Up series of Youth Activists. I have painted Greta Thunberg (Sweden), Jamie Margolin (USA), Vanessa Nakate (Uganda), Kevin J Patel (USA), and Isra Hirsi (USA), Xiuhtezcatl Martinez who has Indigenous Mexican heritage and is based in Colorado (USA), Artemisa Xakriabá of the Xakriabá tribe (Brazil), Helena Guaglinga of Kichwa-native & Finnish origin from Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon (Ecuador) and Autumn Peltier, who is Anishinaabe-kwe and a member of the Wiikwemkoong First Nation (Canada). Each activist has different strengths, different approaches, and different nuance in how they think of their activism. Despite their young age, many of these activists have been fighting for a decade or more.
The point of the exhibition is to shine a light on diverse groups who are largely ignored in favour of white, comparatively privileged people. I hope it will start some conversations which need to be had.
⏤ Yana Lehey
Artist statement
Face Up started life as an assignment for Life Drawing 2.2 at Adelaide Central School of Art, taught by Christopher Orchard. While sketching at the Art Gallery of SA I noticed that many portrayals of marginalised people in artworks seemed to be wearing the same pinched, fed up glower. I recognised the same expression in climate activist locally and worldwide. This caught my interest, as young climate activists are often discredited as ignorant, naive, and easily manipulated children. It brings to light a tendency to associate infantilisation with dismissal.
Image: Yana Lehey, Greta, 2020, watercolour on 300gsm montval paper, 2000 x 1500. Photographer: Morgan Sette.
Photos: Morgan Sette