Yana Payusova’s work reflects both her cultural heritage and training in traditional Russian realist painting, and it blends the styles and symbols of folk art, icons, graphic posters, illustration, and comics. The mundane activities depicted on her ceramic tiles or vessels, such as women doing the washing up or sitting under the hairdryer at the salon, are countered by gold luster highlights. Through this gesture, Payusova’s ordinary heroines become mythical protagonists in painted three-dimensional form.
Yana Payusova was born in Leningrad, USSR and she received an MFA in Interdisciplinary Media Arts Practices from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally including recent exhibitions at the Northern Clay Center, Minneapolis; Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston; Tucson Museum of Art; Conduit Gallery, Dallas; and, the New Taipei City Yingge Ceramics Museum, Taiwan. In 2021 Payusova was artist-in-residence at the Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center, Denmark, as well as a Visiting Artist at the Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass. She recently completed a commissioned installation for Real Unreal, Meow Wolf’s fourth permanent exhibit, in Grapevine, Texas. Payusova is an Assistant Professor of Practice and FYE Program Chair at the School of Art, University of Arizona in Tucson. www.payusova.com