Bio

Yana Rzayeva is an Azerbaijani Canadian multi-media artist based in Toronto, whose work explores themes of diaspora, identity, and cultural hybridity through textiles, oil and encaustic painting, and assemblages. Drawing from her Azerbaijani heritage, she incorporates traditional weaving techniques, hand-dyed natural fibers, discarded handwoven rug cutouts and other sustainable materials to create hybrid objects that embody both continuity and transformation. Her laborious process of making is an act of care and celebration – one that preserves cultural memory while allowing it to evolve in contemporary contexts. Her work honors ancestral knowledge while bridging the past and present, reflecting on the fragmented experience of diasporic existence.

Yana holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art, Media, and Design and a BFA in Drawing and Painting from OCAD University. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Andre Beaulieu Bursary for Young Visual Artists (2022), the Charles Pachter Bursary (2024, 2025) and the Won Lee Fine Art Award (2023).

Artist Statement

My work explores the complexities of diaspora, cultural hybridity, and the fragmentation of the diasporic experience through a multi-media practice that bridges ancestral knowledge and contemporary expression. Drawing from my Azerbaijani heritage, I engage with traditional techniques and natural materials to create works that examine the intersections of memory, belonging, and displacement. Through textile installations, oil and encaustic painting, and assemblages, I investigate how cultural traditions endure, adapt, and transform across generations.

My textile works incorporate fibers hand-dyed with natural materials such as spices commonly used in Azerbaijani cuisine, evoking sensory connections to home and ancestral knowledge. By integrating traditional Azerbaijani weaving and knotting techniques, these works become hybridized objects that merge past and present, reflecting the layered experiences of diasporic identity. I am particularly interested in challenging the distinction between art and craft, celebrating the historically female-dominated practice of weaving that is deeply rooted in the history of my ancestors.

In my assemblages, I incorporate discarded fragments of handwoven rugs into 2D works that serve as metaphors for the geographical and political borders that divide land and people. These fragmented pieces speak to the ruptures and continuities within diasporic narratives, where identity is often defined by both separation and connection.

Natural and sustainable materials are essential to my practice, reflecting a reverence for traditional ways of making while offering a space for these traditions to evolve in contemporary contexts. Through this process, I seek to create works that embody the resilience of cultural memory while questioning the boundaries - both physical and symbolic - that shape diasporic experience.