Yazmin is an artist from Kathmandu, Nepal who currently lives and works in the USA. She creates large scale oil paintings that feature the human figure. Yazmin is interested in how social structures continue to perpetuate systemic oppression based on sex, race, gender identity, and more. She relies on figure painting to pinpoint how this oppression affects women. 

“When I first moved to the USA from Nepal, certain new freedoms were made available to me that are restricted to women back at home. With time, I have felt growing tensions between an imagined freedom versus the very real prejudices I face as a woman of color. I am often reminded of my foreign status in this country, yet I also feel similarly when I visit back home: I am now far too Westernized to assimilate within Nepalese society where sexism is the norm enforced by tradition, culture and religion. This feeling of never truly fitting in has informed my unique point of view, which I leverage to compose my paintings. As the world becomes more aware of how systemically inequality has been woven into the fabric of society, I too keep developing work that responds to this through a feminist lens. My work deals with issues that are extremely relevant and responsive to the volatile state of the world today.”

In 2018, Yazmin received her B.A. in Studio Art and Education from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. She is a pedagogically trained art instructor who holds a K-12 Visual Art Teaching License. After graduating college, Yazmin spent a year creating work for various shows in Minnesota as one of four artists accepted to the Fifth Year Artist Residency at St. Olaf College. 

In 2022, Yazmin received her MFA in Painting from the University of South Dakota where she also taught Foundation 2D Drawing and Figure Painting to undergraduate students. She lives with her rescue dog Milo, who is influencing her current series of work in an exciting, new direction.