Donna Yasaman Sammander
Working Note
I enjoy creating texture on both two-dimensional and three-dimensional surfaces, whether it is in clay or with different types of paper. Nothing is more satisfying to me than to take a strange texture or a found object and “lose” it within the composition. For example, I occasionally use tissue, wallpaper strips, house paint and sand to create a variety of textured surfaces. I love how apiece can be created from many detailed, individual parts that lost their previous functions to form a beautiful whole.
Color, for me, is symbolic of the atmosphere created by emotion. Yellow and red, when painted side by side, convey a luridness, a sadness that is ugly for lack of hope. Pinks and bluish reds tint that space inside one’s thoughts, one’s impressions that is sensitive and tender and easily hurt. Sometimes, the space in between two people is haunted by color, It is my goal to recognize those tints and make them visible. Only by can we glimpse the colors of those spaces, as in the fugitive water color paintings of Emil Nolde.
I love to watch the human face. As I collect pictures of crying faces, laughing faces, puzzled faces from family photo albums and the media, I am amazed at the sameness of expression that we, as human beings, share. I enjoy stylizing the different expressions, yet allowing space to linger on the cut of a jaw, the droop of an eyelid or the piercing black on an eye.
| “Ready, 1! 2! 3! Smile!” Mixed media on board |
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| “She Once Told ME” Mixed media on panel |
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| One Day she dropped her heart, Dropped it So Deeply, Even the Red of it Was Lost In the Darkness of that Whole.” | ||
| “Wrath” Acrylic on canvas |
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| “Lady of Parwan” Mixed media on panel |
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Bio: I was born on 17 August, 1974 in Bloomington, Indiana. From age 12 until age 17, I lived in Saudi Arabia. In 1994, I attended St. Andrews Presbyterian College, majoring in Visual Arts with an emphasis in Art History. During my college career, I spent one semester in Italy, studying the Poetry of Ezra Pound at Brunnenburg in Meran and archaeology in Rome. During my junior year, I spent one semester in China studying political science and Mandarin Chinese. I currently work as the advertising manager at a college newspaper in Atlanta, Georgia.