To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the inception of his Yawnder series, Jay Dart is showing new drawings alongside rarely-exhibited pieces from this body of work in a touring exhibition titled Ten Hundred Years of Yawns & Dust. This series features the exploits of his alter ego, Jiggs, and a cast of wanderers in a whimsical mindscape through which a narrative continues to evolve about the mystical nature of inspiration, the quest for innovative creation, and the dissemination of ideas. Within this conceptually layered world, Dart explores themes of identity, innocence lost/recovered, isolation, ecology, and interconnection in modern society. 

Among the newest works featured at Galerie Youn, the first stop on the tour, is a series of drawings on panels where the compositions carry on from the front of the panels along the sides and continue onto the walls. The site-specific installation of these 10 drawings presents a continuous landscape of the notable sites within the semi-biographical world that I have explored … so far.

Among the new works featured at Slate Gallery, the second stop on the tour, is an installation titled Out On the Planes, in which he continues to find new approaches to presenting his drawings so that the scenes extend beyond the picture plane. Each of the five pieces in this installation carry on from the front of the panels, along the sides, and continue onto the walls, with drawing in between them to present conjoined scenes from a new found part of the Yawnderverse called the Planes. Here, Dart is exploring his fascination with other planes of existence as he continues to contemplate the role of the artist in contemporary culture.

In the Postcards From Yawnder, we return to some of the earliest settings from the saga, only this time the mystical dust storm of Vooka has blown in. The name for this atmospheric event references the concept of VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) which has been used to describe the state of anxious, unpredictability that defines the “new normal” of our times. The wanderers in this mythical world who have been figuratively pondering what’s “in the air” are now also contending with what’s literally in their airborne surroundings.