On view now through October 11, Superposition Gallery is showing YoYo Lander’s newest solo exhibition, Yesterday Was Hard at Phillips in West Hollywood. Curated by Superposition founder Storm Ascher, the show consists of several portraited-collage works that depict different subjects dressed in a green sweater, created solely with strips of watercolored paper manipulated onto watercolor backgrounds, resulting in a multi-layered piece both physically and conceptually. 

Of Yesterday Was Hard, Lander says, “These portraits serve as poignant vignettes, capturing the essence of reflection as the subjects wrestle with the echoes of yesterday’s challenges.” 

Alongside those individuals wrapped in sweaters of deep green–the color chosen by Lander to symbolize growth in contexts of hardship–there are also collaged works of a being whose head is hidden. With only their hands visible, they touch their face through the multi-colored garment that covers their head. 

In a less figurative fashion, Lander and Ascher varies Yesterday Was Hard with “The Speck,” abstract works intended to spotlight the ways in which humanity hyper-focuses on singular imperfections. Here, Lander showcases small canvases arranged in a unified line or square formation, all of them the same besides one, which is blemished with a colorful dollop.  

“I am delighted to have the opportunity to curate a solo exhibition of her more recent explorations with fibered textures and abstracted forms, all rendered with her well-known paper collage process,” says Ascher of the artist. “After seeing what she could do with skin color and texture, I think the LA community will be enthralled with these two new series. I love seeing when an artist moves into another form of their well-known process, especially when the transition is between the figurative and abstract. Both series conceptually draw on resilience and the introspective process of being better to ourselves.”