Yolyanko William - CdeCuba Art Books

YOLYANKO WILLIAM SELECTED WORKS

YOLYANKO WILLIAM. Selected Works First edition, September 2019 Editorial concept: CdeCuba Art Books Texts: Raisa Clavijo Carol Damian Luis Bencomo Guzmán Luis Gottardi Pedro de Oraá Rosanna Montoya Spanish Proofreading: Yamilet Garcia Zamora Translation into English: Diana Schultz Israel English Proofearing: Gregg Lasky Design: Ximo Sánchez Photography and Scanner: Artist's archive Cover Photo: Cosmic Nights #1. 2003 Graphite on paper. 14 x 9 in Back Cover Photo: Expanded #337. 2016 Pastel on cardboard. 14 x 11 in All rights reserved © in this edition: Yolyanko William, 2019 © in the texts, photographs and tanslations: their authors, 2019 ISBN: 978-84-09-14381-8 www.yolyankowilliam.com With special appreciation to Magaly Trujillo, Guillermo Argüelles, Leydi Torres Arias, Rossana Montoya, Tulio Raggi, Rogelio Machado, June Blank, José Cueli, Alicia García Villalon, Yania Izquierdo, Hansel Pérez, Fernando Amat, Johnny Amat, Raffaello Farnese, Ximo Sánchez, Silvina Castillo, Danae Dieguez, Zoila Portuondo, Raisa Clavijo, José López, and Joan Manuel Lorente.

INDEX The Eloquent Line. An Interview with Yolyanko William

By Raisa Clavijo 4 Cosmic Nights Futuristic Mythologies and Cosmic Identities

By Carol Damian 6 Recapitulation The new Humanities of Yolyanko

By Luis Bencomo Guzmรกn 30 The Engulfed Cathedral The engulfed Cathedral

By Luis Gottardi 54 Expanded Yolyanko, The Exalted Line

By Pedro de Oraรก 70 Graphikasana The Practice of Yoga in the Work of Yolyanko William

By Rosanna Montoya 96 Biography 122 Works details 124

The Eloquent Line An Interview with Yolyanko William

By Raisa Clavijo

Yolyanko William is a Cuban born painter, illustrator and filmmaker residing in Miami. A graduate of the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes “San Alejandro”, William has directed and produced numerous animated films including The Engulfed Cathedral and Ex-Ergo. Throughout his career, he has participated in numerous international film festivals in which his work has received commendations and awards.

He has also exhibited his work widely in numerous galleries both in his native country and the United States.

This month, William will present three books that include his work over the last five years. In this interview, the artist talks about what inspired his series Cosmic Nights, Expanded and Graphikasana. Additionally, he shares the origins of the animated film The Engulfed Cathedral contained in the book Cosmic Nights. Beyond this, the reader is provided with the keys to decipher relevant aspects of this young creator’s oeuvre.

Raisa Clavijo: The first book you started working on was Cosmic Nights. How did the series contained in this book arise and how was it developed?

Yolyanko William: The drawings in Cosmic Nights opened a channel into my internal center of perception a world of shifting, ill defined entities that I was better able to visualize with each new drawing. The whole series is like a great sequence that describes the various stages of our evolution along with the intervention of certain entities that helped us along the way. Behind that great sequence there are small scenes that describe the creation of our bodies in a primal stage.

Our humanity has transited through four great evolutionary periods: the mineral, the vegetable, the animal and the human. Between each period there appears a moment of repose and assimilation of the previous stage in order to create the conditions for the subsequent surge of life.

These intervals, called ‘cosmic nights’, submerge everything that has been created into chaos, making way for a ‘new day’ of creation. In many ancient cultures, we find references to this process of reorganization. In the Mayan culture, it is represented as ‘the darkness that precedes rebirth’, and in the Old Testament it evokes the interlude between one day of creation and another.

R.C. The animated film The Engulfed Cathedral was the catalyst that led to the creation of the series Cosmic Nights.

This animated film carries the title of a Debussy composition.

What relationship exists between the animated film and musical piece? What is the concept behind The Engulfed Cathedral?

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Y.W. With The Engulfed Cathedral, I actualized a project that I had borne in mind for a long time: merging animation, comics and graphic work per se in the same space; each one in its medium with the same background theme, in this case ‘the engulfed cathedral’.

For the animated film, I had Debussy’s musical opus to give me the exact interpretation of the work as a whole. On this foundation, I started drawing and constructing the scenes of evolution, the choirs, stained glass and rose windows, but also inserting symbols and narrations from other cultures describing deeds similar to those of the Bible. I was also interested that the body be seen as ascending without cuts in edition, one plane in a sequence of six minutes with Japanese musician Isao Tomita’s version of the Debussy piece. I wrote to the musician’s representatives and they graciously granted me the use of his 1975 version.

The concept was to project an engulfed cathedral, sunken in an individual, inscrutable, hidden subconscious, which emerges to a collective, massive, visual, manifested conscious mind. For the comic, I already had the better part of that structure on the storyboard that I had made as a guide for the movie. I included fragments of the text The Stanzas of Dzyan, the cosmogony on which the anthropologist and philosopher Helena Blavatsky based her essays on comparative religion.

Also, for the comic, I wrote two pages of introduction in which I present a character finding, on his mental surface, part of that great universal mystery and his immersion in it; that is to say, in his own essential being.

Most of the drawings were done on paper, and I transferred some scenes to canvas. In 2011, I was able to exhibit ‘the cathedral’ in these three formats.

R.C. As you previously mentioned, Cosmic Nights is based on your interpretation of The Stanzas of Dzyan, made known by Madame Blavatsky in the 19th century. The Stanzas were the basis of The Secret Doctrine, the treatise for which Blavatsky is best known. Tell me what caused you to approach this body of knowledge and how these teachings inspired this series of works.

Y.W. There was a passage in The Stanzas de Dzyan that helped me develop the first drawings of this series. The passage relates how “the creators descend on the radiant earth and reign over men, who are themselves”. That sequence of events helped me to better visualize certain actions that I had previously drawn, but in a less focused manner. Here I am situated in a concrete place, with a series of scenes that are transfigured, as if these creators were adjusting certain aspects of their nature in order to interfere in our evolution

and merge themselves with our surge of life, giving them the physical body necessary to reign on earth through us.

Our bodies were and perhaps still are their vehicles of manifestation on this plane.

I then began to separate myself from the descriptive and started to make the drawing sequences more abstract. The human forms no longer just interacted with the divinities, but together they managed to readjust certain of their own parameters in order to produce a third entity or new being in charge of ‘awakening’ in the next evolutionary phase or period.

Most of the drawings described are hermaphrodite bodies and the future division of the sexes, as well as the channeling of part of the vital energy toward the brain and many other processes evolving into our current body. The moon is also the protagonist in the third chapter of the book since it causes the cathedral to emerge.

R.C. In a conversation we had a while ago, you said that the colors that you selected for The Engulfed Cathedral had a symbolic connotation. Can you expand on that?

Y.W. Yes. I have always been more interested in line drawings, leaving them almost like a sketch. I love discovering how certain forms flow into other new ones, and it is not until the ‘the cathedral’ that I start including color, but symbolically, principally in the scene with the rose windows and the one with the hierarchies. Rose windows in a cathedral are perceived due to their placement with respect to the sun, and that light effect inserts them into certain occurrences in the life of Christ such as when the afternoon sun’s rays fall on a specific rose window and make it appear red, evoking the moment of the crucifixion of Jesus and the blood he shed. There is always another rose window that, due to its placement, never receives sunlight.

R.C. Symbols from different cultures: Gothic, Tibetan, Sumerian, etc. coincide in these in these Cosmic Nights drawings. Tell me a little about this.

Y.W. These symbols and motifs from various cultures do not converge intentionally. They belong to a primitive civilization that settled in the Himalayan mountains after the great flood, and from there it expanded all its knowledge to the new land and it instructed the other civilizations that survived the preceding eras: Hyperborean, Lemurian and Atlantean. That is why one finds many common denominators in Sumer, India, Egypt, in all the Mediterranean, in the Americas, etc., because the root of that knowledge came from the same source, and therefore its symbols, its myths, architectonic motifs and deities resemble each other. Blavatsky, as a good anthropologist, went to Tibet because she knew this through her travels to India and her encounters with the great masters.

R.C. Expanded is another of the books you will be presenting soon. How did this series of works arise?

Y.W. The collection of drawings in Expanded was realized at different times, and this served to insert a different kind of graphic representation for each series. Some were from the time before ‘the cathedral’, in which the line was cleaner and more defined; others are more gestural, like the poses for the Hatha Yoga series, and yet others more abstract that pertain to a comic that I am working on now. Also, in Expanded, I make the transition from black and white to colored pastel works. Initially, in some colored ones, the dependence on the definition made by the line is apparent, but then those edges begin dissolving and the base of the forms starts opening up without such closed contours.

R.C. Graphikasana. The Hatha Yoga is a series that you concluded recently. Tell me how it arose. What motivated the process of creation, and how did it develop?

Y.W. I began the series Graphikasana about three years ago with small notations that I made at sessions where people strike their poses. With a quick sketch, I managed to incorporate all of that bodily tension.

I also incorporated color little by little in order to highlight specific areas of the body that, because of their position, require greater effort. I suddenly realized that I had hundreds of drawings of different poses and manners in which to portray them.

Thus, I set out on the task of separating the book into two parts: the first part in black and white compiles four sessions chronologically and the second part in color and separated by the order required for each exercise, starting with those requiring balance, forward leaning postures, inversion until reaching the seventh in the sequence, which is relaxation.

R.C. Are you thinking of presenting a selection of the works from this latest series in February at Art Wynwood? If so, which pieces will you present?

Y.W. I will be in the ARTPULSE Magazine booth.

I will be presenting four portfolios of editions from the series: Cosmic Nights, The Engulfed Cathedral, Expanded and Graphikasana, all printed in a deluxe format.

R.C. Where can one obtain the books for these three series? Do you have any plans to exhibit these works?

Y.W. The three books will be available on Amazon very soon. For the one on yoga, we created the website graphikasana.com, where one will be able to buy the catalog with all of the images, as well as a calendar for this year, and also one will be able to order reproductions of many of the works.

ArtDistricts Magazine No.58 February-March 2019 Raisa Clavijo is an art historian, critic and curator based in Miami.

She is the editor of ARTPULSE and ARTDISTRICTS Magazines

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Futuristic Mythologies and Cosmic Identities

By Carol Damian

A persistent yearning for a romanticized past informs the often fantastic imagery carefully and methodically drawn by Yolyanko William. A consummate draftsman and erudite visionary, William uses his academic skills to invent a new mythology that combines the past with the future. It is a vision shared by many artists over the centuries, now made contemporary by his unique style of naturalistic manipulation and flowing organic designs.

Imbued with erotic overtones, his imagery transforms traditional references to the cosmos and mysticism to human anatomical forms that metamorphosize, merge and reemerge into inventive new shapes and imaginative configurations that defy reality, as much as they are provocative and impossible.

In his latest three series: Cosmic Nights, Recapitulation, and The Engulfed Cathedral, he explores elements of anatomy as references to the creation of a multi layered structure of perspectival references, dominated by the human body.

Despite these obvious comments on human figures and body parts, each revealed as individual elements opening into a fluctuating organism, the seemingly predominant eroticism gives way to a most unusual interpretation of concepts relating to the philosophical.

Cosmic Nights presents the opportunity to delve into the mind of the artist to understand the inspiration for these and other works that are always infused with arcane symbolism and allusions to the occult, a subject that has long fascinated him. It was the Tibetan text: Cosmic Evolution: Seven Stanzas from the Secret Book of Dzyan, a work discovered and made known to the world by the theosophist Helena Blavatsky and said to be the oldest known cosmogonic text, that challenged his own world view and revealed to the artist new concepts to investigate. With its description of the evolutionary life of humanity and its transit through various stages of development, William realized that he could translate these obscure beliefs into their visual counterparts. He sees it as a mental exercise, an interval and opportunity, to assimilate esoteric and mysterious ideas and bring them into a new reality and act of regeneration through his drawings.

William continues his journey into a strange and perhaps futuristic view of the universe through notions related to humanity and its anatomical configurations with their constant transformations in other series. Always dominated by a spontaneous approach to making imagery, it is as if he allows his imagination to take control as he reaches into the future with his pen.

Carol Damian. Professor of Art History Florida International University

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Cosmic Nights

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The New Humanities of Yolyanko

By Luis Bencomo Guzmรกn

Yolyanko William presents us with a new, enigmatic and dynamic challenge that enraptures us. After a cosmic rain his Intraterrestrials arrived on the planet on one of those remote dawns of indeterminate temperature in order to establish a brave new Genesis where their Erotic-organic forms grew and multiplied like superior entities emerging from one of the most distant corners of our universe.

These mutated and magnificent beings generated by the farthest depths of his mental labyrinth are possessors of precise drawing, almost supernatural. The line that defines them carries implicit an almost Renaissance volumetric valuation and the forms that contain it propose new humanities beyond the improbable and endowed with great graphic beauty. This great artist of Cuban origin has shown us a new ecosystem of beings that we should analyze with new profound and creative optics. Let us travel next to him through those unknown existential levels very close to the terrestrial Underworld where organic logic is different.

Luis Bencomo Guzmรกn. Painter, illustrator, professor of design and author

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Recapitulation

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The Engulfed Cathedral

By Luis Gottardi

Yolyanko William, who is fascinated with the occult, has recontextualized this legend into the present in a series called The Engulfed Cathedral, composed of exquisite figure line drawings, often several to one work. Some of the themes he explores in this series are those of evolution and potential, both personal and humanity’s, in general. The immersion in water, emergence based on the lunar calendar, all harken back to the time when Goddesses roamed our world and rolled out the stars at night. Yolyanko’s is not merely a nostalgic, sentimental vision, but a futuristic, energized, hopeful one, a longing for a fusion between what we lost and what we are, forward looking to what we might be.

Luis Gottardi. Editor and art critic

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Yolyanko, The Exalted Line

By Pedro de Oraá

Painting is always considered the most visible medium of change; however, the applied arts, design in its different aspects, as well as architecture also undeniably register the signs of the times. The powerful movement of modernism, canonical exponent of the fin-de-siècle spirit –in route to the century of isms and the iconoclastic avant garde– was assisted by multiple trends: Art Nouveau, Modern Style, Jugendstil, Sezessionstil, Liberty Style and in particular Modernisme in Gaudí’s Catalonian Spain.

The emphasis of the style manifested by the movement compels us to notice in the imprint projected to the future by its painters, by its illustrators and its metalsmiths –Edvard Munch, Alphonse Mucha, Aubrey Beardsley, René Lalique, among others– undeniable referents, as are artists from different origins –such as Durero or Hokusai– in the drawings of leading Cuban creators of recent generations: Fabelo, Fariñas and the subject of this text: Yolyanko.

Yolyanko’s drawing denotes the temperament of its author in its clean and precise design, the extreme care of the composition, equilibrium of the forms, light tension of the lines in their undulating flow –not sinuous, a term that would approximate another sense: tortuous– and expressive of two constant characteristics: voluptuousness and elegance. If to that we add the inventiveness of his figuration, we observe the totality of high quality images.

Yolyanko is an “unusual” character in the world of graphic illustration. He escapes from the tiresome uniformity in design prevalent today as the summum representation of the latest avant-garde: asymmetric, ragged outline, accentuated by blotches and texturizations ad nauseum, dregs of the badly assimilated influence of action-painting, bad-painting or brute art, tendencies already left behind and overcome with the most recent advances in digital art.

The singularity of Yolyanko’s drawing consists of carefully heeding the call of a creative impulse arising from the most profound introspection, together with the ability to see the world in a different light, without contamination, leading him to an independent choice of style.

Originality –to say it with the intention of Maurice Blanchot– cannot be absolute, since it would lack a model for comparison; for it to occur, it must be relative. Yolyanko is original in the only way possible: recreating what has already been created, rediscovering it and finding forgotten or poorly transited areas. In this way he reinvigorates, with the illusive instrument of style, the space dissipated by the fatigue of the form. To innovate –to redo– without repetition.

Unusual artists pass through the history of art as a diachronic presence. It cannot be explained convincingly; it is not known well enough because it feigns ignorance of the canon by which each period is defined; and it does not appear to advance because it also does not preconceive any future. It is in an unknown time; however, unusual artists are unified by a hidden network of communicating vessels.

Is this identification devoid of time a distinctive feature of their styles? Or the idea they contain?

The Da Vinci of the notebooks where drawing delves into the mystery of nature or invents what does not exist; the illusionist portraits of Arcimboldo, joyous glorifications of the plant kingdom and among them the one dedicated to Vertumnus, the god of seasons; the oppressive environments invented by Piranesi; the oneirism of Klimt and the fantasy of Klee: all of them so dissimilar yet so alike in the aestheticization of language and in their preoccupation with the message: all related precursors of what Yolyanko is seeking with perhaps Beardsley being the nearest. Yolyanko’s figurations express the unearthly.

They are deformed bodies or fragments of them, fused to others of a different species or material, whose symbiotic relationship appears to move forward toward new transformations; muscular organisms of notable elasticity, on the verge of being displaced, moved by latent energy.

The compositions of these mutants are never rectilinear: the eroticism contained in them insinuates itself precisely because of their slithering curves.

The symmetry in certain figures does not make them banal –there is no excessive ornamentation in those images– instead, it contributes to increasing its strangeness.

The vision of this artist is directed at unraveling the dark interstice of our subconscious. This perhaps relates him to surrealists, due as much to the unexpected combination of these contortionistic specters as to the oneiric charge that animates them. However, the surrealists are not exclusive examples of the intervention of the dream in the creative process, nor does this Cuban artist allow himself to submit solely to that means of expression. His series of highly sophisticated drawings shows us the rich inventiveness of the author and his state of realization on a conscious level.

Yolyanko belongs to that different group of artists in this region of the hemisphere, inspired by universal art, but who has an answer of solid self defining value when confronted with the questionable perspective of subjugation of the so called “periphery” and the continuous bombardment of standards by centers of power in the arts.

Pedro de Oraá (Cuba, 1931) Poet, narrator, essayist, art critic and painter. National Prize for Plastic Arts Award 2015

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The Practice of Yoga in the Work of Yolyanko William

By Rosanna Montoya

The generous amounts of asanas that Yolyanko William has rendered in these series of drawings demonstrates that symbolically speaking, the physical body can be lost in an immense sea of visual energy. This imagery of voluptuous lines and simplified figural sketches, go beyond the mere intention to give a didactic account of the practice of yoga.

It only takes a few glimpses of these images to perceive the innumerable amount of physical and psychological benefits that these yoga postures offer. In the words of the ancient Yogi Pantajali, “The word asana is defined as a firm posture of the body which shows relaxation at the same time”. In this group of practical and mystical graphics, the serene quality that allows the body to be prepared for meditation is perceived in the confident and gestural line of the artist.

Yolyanko William chooses the symbolic lotus flower pose as the starting point of his body of work. From the start, the figure assuming this pose and others subsequent ones have no specific gender. Just as the soul is an ethereal entity in the realm of mystic beliefs, the figures represented

by William embody a stylized anatomy associated more with incorporeal beings than with the physical body. The image of the lotus flower evolves taking other embodiments in different stages where the figure seems to adhere to a subtle mysticism. A strong gestural figure grows out of its visual matter to become more stylized. In his drawings, the essence of physical liberation, which the practice of yoga aspires to achieve, is manifested in the abstraction of the figure.

These images reflect the artist’s visual and transcendental search. The artist intuition is charged with beliefs and concepts that the practice of yoga offers a transformative process. From the moment he chooses this particular subject matter, he also chooses to face the evasive quality of the learning involved in growing with his art and in becoming stronger and more confident. As he grows in this personal practice, the images become emancipated from the formalities and the symbolism that he discovers in the process.

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The result of this search is seen in many of the figures presented in a meditative immobility vulnerable to physical and spiritual growth. There is physical evolution as well, which is manifested within images that denote lines with visceral characteristics such as tendons, veins, ligaments that are intertwined or stretched out revealing part of the strenuous side of the yoga practice. Highlighting these anatomical elements confirm the necessary presence of a sturdy yoga posture to liberate the body from the psychological ties which it is subjected to. As the figure becomes more stylized, the complexity of line turns more intrinsic and an ethereal being emerges.

The being represented in the foundation phase or warrior poses, maintains the fundamental vitality of the physical body as well as the strength necessary for the practice of yoga. Here the artist uses a more neuralgic line. William’s warriors are striving to reach the light that represents the essential qualities such as courage, strength, flexibility and the ability to remove the obstacles on the way towards achieving a higher self.

In the subsequent drawings, the figure goes through a visual metamorphosis as an allegory to the different stages that the practice of yoga aspires. The application of subtle and intuitive lines keep building sequential dynamics such as the sun salutations and the balancing poses. It is a visual challenge as well as a philosophical one to maintain a balanced pattern in the way the poses move along the pages.

And it is with the inventiveness of the sensibility of an artist that his hand fulfills the ultimately intention which is to transmit the divine beauty of the union between the mind and the soul of yoga and art.

Rosanna Montoya (Lima-Peru) Writer, artist and hatha yoga instructor

Graphikasana

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Yolyanko William (Cuba, 1975) Graduated from Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, Havana, Cuba. Painter, draftsman and audiovisual filmmaker. He has directed several cartoons such as The Engulfed Cathedral and Ex-ergo participating and achieving awards and mentions in international film festivals, as well as personal and collective Exhibitions of his work at several art galleries.

Art Studies 1994-1997 Graduated in Fine Arts Academy “San Alejandro”. La Habana, Cuba.

Personal Exhibitions 2016 Expanded. Miami Art Club, Bird Road Art Walk. Florida, USA. 2011 Touching. Shirley Gallery. Florida, USA. 2010 Cathedral Submerged. Collective Gallery. Saint Petersburg. Florida, USA. 2006 On line. Recreative Center Jose A. Hecheverria. La Habana, Cuba.

1999 Siempre humano. Casa Estudiantil Universitaria. La Habana, Cuba.

1998 Primavera en La Habana. Museo de la Educación. La Habana, Cuba.

Group Exhibitions 2014 Las otras narraciones. Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wifredo Lam. La Habana, Cuba.

2014 An Art Fair for Collectors by Collectors. Miami Spaces Gallery, Wynwood Art District. Florida, USA. 2012 The Pearl Necklace. Accent Alternative Art Space. Florida, USA. 2011 Cuban Yank Tanks. Children Gallery. Florida, USA. 2010 Crónicas urbanas. Vitrina de Valonia. La Habana, Cuba.

2002 Ilustradores cubanos. Traveling show through Several Galleries in Brazil.

2002 Homenaje a Belkis Ayón. Galería Domingo Ravenet. La Habana, Cuba.

2002 Salón pequeño formato Fayad Jamís. Universidad de La Habana, Cuba.

2001 Salón Flora. Casa de Cultura Municipal de Marianao. La Habana, Cuba.

2000 Salón pequeño formato Fayad Jamís. Universidad de La Habana, Cuba.

1999 Salón Flora. Casa de Cultura Municipal de Marianao. La Habana, Cuba.

1999 40 + 30. (40 Aniversario del ICAIC), Galería TeodoroRamos. La Habana, Cuba.

1990 Taller Joven. Galería Teodoro Ramos. La Habana, Cuba.

1988 Taller Joven. Galería Quinta de Los Molinos. La Habana, Cuba .

Filmography 2007 The Engulfed Cathedral. (Animation). Direction and Designs. Winner (FIPRESCI, 2008).

2007 Ex-ergo. (Animation). Direction and Designs. Winner (FIPRESCI, 2008). Winner After Dark South Beach Animation Festival. Florida, USA. 2009 Top. (Animation).

2009 Opus. (Art-Video).

2010 The Dictation. (Animation). Special Winner Animation. New Filmmakers Festival 2010.

2010 Stairway to Hell. (Art-Video).

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Cosmic Nights Cosmic Nights #1b, 2009 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 7

Cosmic Nights #57, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 15

Cosmic Nights #70, 2011 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 in p. 22

Cosmic Nights #20, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 8

Cosmic Nights #81, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 16

Cosmic Nights #147, 2013 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 in p. 23

Cosmic Nights #24, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 26 in p. 8

Cosmic Nights #80, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 16

Cosmic Nights #46, 2010 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 inch p. 24

Cosmic Nights #5, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 9

Cosmic Nights #73, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 17

Cosmic Nights #189, 2013 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 inch p. 24

Cosmic Nights #18, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 10

Cosmic Nights #109, 2012 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 17

Cosmic Nights #192, 2013 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 in p. 24

Cosmic Nights #3, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 10

Cosmic Nights #10, 2010 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 in p. 18

Cosmic Nights #89, 2011 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 in p. 24

Cosmic Nights #30, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 11

Cosmic Nights #71, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 19

Cosmic Nights #65, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 25

Cosmic Nights #38, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 11

Cosmic Nights #74, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 19

Cosmic Nights #69, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 25

Cosmic Nights #37, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 12

Cosmic Nights #87, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 20

Cosmic Nights #114, 2012 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 26

Cosmic Nights #50, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 12

Cosmic Nights #28, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 20

Cosmic Nights #105, 2012 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 26

Cosmic Nights #34, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 13

Cosmic Nights #111, 2012 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 21

Cosmic Nights #90, 2011 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 in p. 27

Cosmic Nights #40, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 13

Cosmic Nights #84, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 21

Cosmic Nights #76, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 28

Cosmic Nights #49, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 14

Cosmic Nights #25, 2010 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 in p. 22

Cosmic Nights #103, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 28

Cosmic Nights #41, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 14

Cosmic Nights #52, 2010 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 in p. 22

Cosmic Nights #43, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 29

Cosmic Nights #59, 2010 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 15

Cosmic Nights #117, 2012 Ink on cardboard 36 x 24 in p. 22

Cosmic Nights #98, 2011 Ink on cardboard, 24 x 36 in p. 29

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Recapitulation Recapitulation #1, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 31

Recapitulation #9, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 39

Recapitulation #17, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 47

Recapitulation #2, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 32

Recapitulation #10, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 40

Recapitulation #18, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 48

Recapitulation #3, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 33

Recapitulation #11, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 41

Recapitulation #19, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 49

Recapitulation #4, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 34

Recapitulation #12, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 42

Recapitulation #20, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 50

Recapitulation #5, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 35

Recapitulation #13, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 43

Recapitulation #21, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 51

Recapitulation #6, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 36

Recapitulation #14, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 44

Recapitulation #22, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 52

Recapitulation #7, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 37

Recapitulation #15, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 45

Recapitulation #23, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 53

Recapitulation #8, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 38

Recapitulation #16, 2014 Ink and pastel on cardboard, 36 x 24 in p. 46

The Engulfed Cathedral

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The Engulfed Cathedral, 2009 Acrylic on canvas, 36 x 24 in p. 55

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 5, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 60

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 10, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 65

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 1, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 56

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 6, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 61

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 11, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 66

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 2, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 57

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 7, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 62

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 12, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 67

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 3, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 58

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 8, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 63

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 13, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 68

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 4, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 59

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 9, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 64

The Engulfed Cathedral, Page 14, 2009 Ink on paper, 36 x 24 in p. 69

Expanded Expanded #2, 1998 Ink on paper, 17 x 11 in p. 71

Expanded #95, 2015 Ink on paper, 9 x 6.5 in p. 79

Expanded #382, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 87

Expanded #1, 1997 Graphite on paper, 11 x 17 in p. 72

Expanded #254, 2016 Ink on paper, 14 x 17 in p. 80

Expanded #375, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 87

Expanded #79, 2006 Ink on paper, 11 x 17 inches p. 72

Expanded #258, 2016 Ink on paper, 14 x 17 in p. 80

Expanded #369, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 87

Expanded #3, 1998 Ink on paper, 11 x 17 inches p. 73

Expanded #293, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 81

Expanded #442, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 9 x 12 in p. 88

Expanded #4, 1998 Ink on paper, 11 x 17 in p. 73

Expanded #300, #372, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 17 in p. 82

Expanded #408, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 11 x 19 in p. 88

Expanded #38, 2001 Ink on paper, 17 x 11 in p. 74

Expanded #310, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 83

Expanded #397, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 89

Expanded #7, 1998 Ink on paper, 17 x 11 inches p. 74

Expanded #308, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 83

Expanded #456, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 12 x 9 in p. 89

Expanded #11, 1998 Ink on paper, 17 x 11 in p. 74

Expanded #305, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 83

Expanded #384, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 89

Expanded #9, 1998 Ink on paper, 17 x 11 in p. 74

Expanded #311, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 83

Expanded #365, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 89

Expanded #73, #72, 2005 Ink on paper, 11 x 17 in p. 75

Expanded #312, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 84

Expanded #474, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 9 x 12 in p. 90

Expanded #15, 2001 Ink on paper, 17 x 11 in p. 76

Expanded #328, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 84

Expanded #499, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 11 x 14 in p. 90

Expanded #14, 2001 Ink on paper, 17 x 11 in p. 77

Expanded #325, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 84

Expanded #472, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 19 x 14 in p. 91

Expanded #96, 2015 Ink on paper, 9 x 6.5 in p. 78

Expanded #331, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 84

Expanded #523, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 92

Expanded #156, 2015 Ink on paper, 9 x 6.5 in p. 78

Expanded #421, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 19 in p. 85

Expanded #426, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 93

Expanded #129, 2015 Ink on paper, 9 x 6.5 in p. 78

Expanded #389, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 19 in p. 86

Expanded #480, #476, #484, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 94

Expanded #157, 2015 Ink on paper, 9 x 6.5 in p. 78

Expanded #365, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 87

Expanded #513, 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 11 in p. 95

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Graphikasana Graphikasana. Relaxing Pose #1a. Full lotus pose (Padmasana), 2018 Ink on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 97 Graphikasana. Session 2 #38. Extended hand to big toe pose (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana), 2015 Ink on paper, 18 x 24 in p. 98 Graphikasana. Session 2 #46. Leg position of half cow face pose in half-moon pose (Pada Ardha Gomunkhasana in Ardha Chandrasana), 2015 Ink on paper, 24 x 18 in p. 98

Graphikasana. Session 4 #13. Half feet spread out intense stretch pose (Ardha Prasarita Padottanasana), 2017 Ink on paper, 18 x 24 in p. 100 Graphikasana. Session 4 #14. Upward lotus pose in downward facing tree pose (Urdhva Padmasana), 2017 Ink on paper, 24 x 18 in p. 100

Graphikasana. Session 3 #14. Revolved Heron pose (Parivritta Krounchasana), 2016 Ink on paper, 12 x 9 in p. 102 Graphikasana. Session 3 No.34. Revolved one leg bound fierce pose (Parivritta Dwi Pada Baddha Utkatasana), 2017 Ink on paper, 9 x 12 in p. 103 Graphikasana. Session 3 #19. Upward salute (Urdhva Hastasana), 2016 Ink on paper, 12 x 9 in p. 103 Graphikasana. Session 3 #20. Half bound lotus tree pose (Ardha Baddha Padma Vrikshasana), 2016 Ink on paper, 12 x 9 in p. 103

Graphikasana. Session 2 #47. Crane pose (Bakasana), 2015 Ink on paper, 24 x 18 in p. 98

Graphikasana. Session 2 #2. Seated angle pose (Upavishta Konasana), 2015 Ink on paper, 11 x 17 in p. 101

Graphikasana. Session 2 #51. Dedicated to Sage Marichi (Marichyasana), 2015 Ink on paper, 18 x 24 in p. 98

Graphikasana. Session 2 #3. Intense side stretch, (Parvottanasana), 2015 Ink on paper, 11 x 17 in p. 101

Graphikasana. Session 3 #21. Half bound lotus half-moon pose (Ardha Baddha Padma Ardha Chandrasana), 2016 Ink on paper, 9 x 12 in p. 103

Graphikasana. Session 2 #36. Chair ankle to knee (Uttkatasana), 2015 Ink on paper, 24 x 18 in p. 99

Graphikasana. Ssession 2 #4. Toe upward seated angle pose (Padangushta Urdhva Upavistha Konasana), 2015 Ink on paper, 11 x 17 in p. 101

Graphikasana. Session 3 #22. Half lotus warrior 3 (Ardha Padma Virabhadrasana 3), 2016 Ink on paper, 9 x 12 inches p. 103

Graphikasana. Session 3 #24. Bowing with respect both hands extended to big toes (Nantum Utthita Dwi Hasta Padangushtasana), 2016 Ink on paper, 12 x 9 in p. 102

Graphikasana. Forward bends #6 Table pose (Bharmanasana). #7 Cat pose (Marjaryasana). #8 Cow pose (Bitilasana), 2018. Pastel on cardboard, 20 x 25 in p. 104

Graphikasana. Session 2 #45. Reverse prayer half-moon pose (viparita Namaskar Ardha Chandrasana), 2015 ink on paper, 18 x 24 in p. 99 Graphikasana. Session 2 #43. Revolved pose dedicated to Sage Vasistha (Parivritta Vasisthasana), 2015 Ink on paper, 18 x 24 in p. 99 Graphikasana. Session 2 #31. Chair pose (Utkatasana), 2015, Ink on paper, 24 x 18 in p. 99 Graphikasana. Session 4 #11. Mountain pose with hands in prayer (Tadasana Namaskar), 2017 Ink on paper, 18 x 24 in p. 100

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Graphikasana. Session 4 #12. Reverse prayer feet spread out intense stretch pose (Prasarita Padottanasana), 2017 Ink on paper, 18 x 24 in p. 100

Graphikasana. Session 3 #25. Twist dedicated to Sage Bharadvaja (Bharadvajasana), 2016 ink on paper, 12 x 9 in p. 102 Graphikasana. Session 3 #32. Revolved feet spread out intense stretch pose (Parivritta Prasarita Padottanasana), 2017 Ink on paper, 24 x 18 in p. 102

Graphikasana. Closing poses #3. Bound angle pose (Baddha Konasana), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 105 Graphikasana. Backbends #18. Crescent moon pose and one hand in prayer (Ashva Sanchalasana Namaskar), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 17 in p. 106

Graphikasana. Backbends #19. Reverse prayer Son of Anjani lunge pose (Viparita Namaskar Anjaneyasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 17 in p. 106 Graphikasana. Backbends #5, 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 11 x 14 in p. 107 Graphikasana. Balance #8. Pose dedicated to Sage Goraksha (Gorakshasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 108 Graphikasana. Balance #9. Tip toe pose, variation (Prapadasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 108 Graphikasana. Forward bends #5. Intense stretch pose (Uttanasana), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 108 Graphikasana. Balance #33. Super soldier Pose (Viparita Parivrtta Surya Yantrasana) 2017. Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 20 in p. 108 Graphikasana. Balance #10. Supported one-legged tip toe pose (Salamba Eka Pada Prapadasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 17 in p. 109 Graphikasana. Balance #11. Extended hand to big toe pose (Utthita Hasta Padangushtasana in Ardha Prapada Virasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 20 in p. 109 Graphikasana. Backbends #13. Bound lotus pose (Baddha Padmasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 110 Graphikasana. Balance #44. Rooster pose (Kukkutasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 110

Graphikasana. Forward bends #27.

Lotus pose (Padmasana), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 20 in p. 110

Graphikasana. Backbends #1. Mermaid pose (Naginyasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 17 in p. 115

Graphikasana. Balance #7. Eagle pose dedicated to Garuda (Garudasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 20 in p. 111

Graphikasana. Forward bends #18. Upward star pose (Urdhva Tarasana), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 116

Graphikasana. Twist #5. Revolved one leg bound fierce pose, variation (Parivritta Eka Pada Baddha Utkatasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 17 in p. 112

Graphikasana. Inversions #15. Baby cradle pose in headstand (Hindolasana in Shirshasana ), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 20 in p. 117

Graphikasana. Forward bends #12.

Archer’spose (Akarna Dhanurasana), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 17 in p. 112

Graphikasana. Balance #16. Lord of the dance pose (Natarajasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 118

Graphikasana. Twist #3. Bound extended side angle pose (Baddha Utthita Parshva Konasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 17 in p. 113

Graphikasana. Twist #13. Cow face pose (Gomukhasana), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 119

Graphikasana. Forward bends #13. Cow face pose (Gomukhasana), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 113 Graphikasana. Backbends #7. Bow pose (Dhanurasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 20 x 25 in p. 114 Graphikasana. Standing pose #1. Warrior pose 2 (Virabhadrasana 2), 2016 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 20 in p. 114

Graphikasana. Balance #12. Feet spread out intense stretch pose 4 (Prasarita Padottanasana 4), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 20 in p. 119 Graphikasana. Balance #13. Hands bound forward bend (Baddha Hasta Uttanasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 20 in p. 119 Graphikasana. Closing poses #7. 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 20 x 25 in p. 120

Graphikasana. Forward bends #2. Child’s pose (Balasana), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 14 x 17 in p. 115

Graphikasana. Backbends #9. Bridge pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana), 2017 Pastel on cardboard, 20 x 25 in p. 120

Graphikasana. Forward bends #15. Foot behind the head pose with hands in prayer (Eka Pada Shirshasana Namaskar), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 25 x 20 in p. 110

Graphikasana. Twist #11. Revolved heron pose (Parivritta Krounchasana), 2018 Pastel on cardboard, 17 x 14 in p. 121

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Yolyanko William (Cuba, 1975) Graduated from Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes San Alejandro, Havana, Cuba.

Painter, draftsman and audiovisual filmmaker. He has directed several cartoons such as The Engulfed Cathedral and Ex-ergo participating and achieving awards and mentions in international film festivals, as well as personal and collective Exhibitions of his work at several art galleries.

This book contains the series Cosmic Nights, Recapitulation, The Engulfed Cathedral, Expanded and Graphikasana.

“A persistent yearning for a romanticized past informs the often-fantastic imagery carefully and methodically drawn by Yolyanko William. A consummate draftsman and erudite visionary, William uses his academic skills to invent a new mythology that combines the past with the future.�

Carol Damian Professor of Art History Florida Internacional University

www.yolyankowilliam.com www.graphikasana.com