Photo by Robert Hale
Yrneh Gabon is a Jamaican born, multi-disciplinary, mixed media and performance artist based in Los Angeles. Having graduated from the University of Southern California (USC) BFA with (Hons) and Otis College of Arts and Design, (MFA). Yrneh’s practice seeks balance and intersect artistic representation with social activism and social commentary, particularly regarding issues pertinent to Africa and people within its Diaspora. In 2014, after travels and research in Tanzania, Jamaica and across America, Gabon was given his first solo and major body of work at the California African American Museum CAAM entitled “Visibly Invisible” Albinism in Tanzania, Jamaica, and the USA through his eyes.
“Visibly Invisible” Focused on the killings, the hunting and mistreatment of people born with Albinism, and brought attention to the plight of people living with Albinism particularly in East Africa and was instrumental in speaking at the United Nation, in New York advocating for the passing of the bill that protects people with Albinism around the world. His ongoing project is a Operetta on ecological Climate Change entitled “Memba Mi Tell Yu/Listen Up Take Note” bringing awareness to the nexus of ecological climate change dealing with fire and water and now salt.
In 2017, Gabon completed a summer residency at the Foundación Sebastián in Mexico City, Mexico. His work, entitled “Roots and Symbols,” explored the invisible people of African heritage in Mexico and the lack of equitable resources in communists of color in the black coastal Mexico. Gabon has held exhibitions in New York, California and internationally in Vancouver Canada, Dakar Senegal and Jamaica, West Indies. In December 2018, Gabon had the distinct honor and privilege to be one of the featured international artists at the Musée de Civilizations Noires inaugural exhibition in Dakar, Senegal.
Gabon was invited to exhibit in the summer 2019 at the National Gallery and was a Guest Speaker at “Mi and Me Suitcase” Earl Warner Foundation, at the University of the West Indies (UWI) HQ fundraiser benefiting Scholarships for arts students, in Jamaica. A true artist in heart and soul, Gabon has been in the arts and entertainment for over 35 years and has worked as a poet, actor/singer, award winning director, producer, playwright, special effects make-up artist and creative director. Gabon’s purpose and aim continues to use of all mediums of art as a tool for empowerment, social activism and social commentary regarding issues surrounding Africa and its Diaspora. His work continues to create new narratives and extend dialogue between Africa and its Diaspora, both in the first and the developing world. Gabon 2022 Dakar biennale selecting “Salt” was inspired by his travels to Lac Rose in Senegal and explores the intersection of salt as a commodity in Africa and the United States. His upcoming Fulbright fellowship will take him to Southern African country of Botswana, where he will research the impact of Social to people, the ecological climate change in the Okavango Delta and Lake Makgadikgadi Salt Pond 2023-24.
“It is my mission to use my Fine Arts Practice to re-education and address the inequities within undeserved communities and reconstruct a narrative, that bridge us as a people facing social, inspirational seeing with the mind’s eyes and speaking from the heart. We need to speak less and do more for positive and social empowerment.”
