Abound

"When I started making art, I set out to create new environments that are lush, colorful, organic, and alive. Over the years, many people have drawn comparisons between my work and coral reefs. It's because these coral reefs are all those things. When healthy, they're vibrant and colorful and incredibly dense with various lifeforms, all working together to survive. With the bleaching of the coral reefs due to rising ocean temperatures, a lot of the color has been lost, and alongside it, so many lifeforms have faded as well. With this edition, I want to bring the color back and remind people of the magnificence we stand to lose if we don't get serious about global warming and pollution of our beautiful oceans."

- Yellena James

Yellena James is an artist/illustrator currently living in Portland, OR. Preferring pens, inks, and acrylics, she combines complex abstract forms into dazzling images that take on lives of their own. Her colorful arrangements of organic shapes and tangled lines are at once floral and alien, organic, and sci-fi. Each intimate world she creates seems to possess its own ethos and its own special ability to radiate emotion.

Besides participating in shows around the US and overseas, she has done illustration work for Adobe, Apple, Relativity Media, La Mer, SAK, Anthropologie, and many others.