The Arts & Business Council, Blackbird Media, and F&M Bank have teamed up to present the Artist of the Week on The Nashville Sign. This week’s featured artist is Yenny LeDoux Zarama!
Yenny LeDoux Zarama has a strong passion for photography and oil painting. This passion is deeply intertwined with a life-long resolve to embrace taking risks so she may achieve her goals, and do what she loves.
“I’ve always been a woman driven by challenges, and challenges involve taking risks…My path as an artist has been a beautiful journey influenced by each experience, whether positive or negative. Each painting represents how I choose to view what is going on around me and how I respond to these experiences.”
Yenny grew up in her native country Columbia, where her family offered the support and strength she needed to continue shaping her future for herself. She studied different careers at different universities including fashion design, photography, business administration, and computer science. She ultimately graduated with a major in web design, and began a career as a publicist. But she could not abandon her passion for the arts.
On a birthday trip to Disney World in Florida, she came to the realization that she wanted to make a home in the United States. After traveling around the country, she settled in Atlanta, GA and became a citizen. She worked in marketing, and then at a newspaper where she was able to use her photography skills, and also found many opportunities to develop her skills as an artist.
These opportunities allowed her to turn her attention to art full time, and she has been painting professionally for over 15 years. Yenny primarily creates commissioned work, but also sells what she creates from her photographs. Her paintings have been exhibited in Columbia, Aruba, Panama, Venezuela, and the United States. In the US she has exhibited in different galleries, museums, hotels and exhibition rooms. But the most significant was her series of 4 large pieces she created for “The Amazing Twins,” a puppet show created by Vanderbilt’s Center for Latin American Studies and the Nashville Public Library. The show presented a collection of ancient Mayan tales from the Popol Wuj book.
During the pandemic, she decided to expand her painting business to create ArtistZarama Face Masks. She directed her energies to creating beautiful custom face masks that would make people feel more comfortable about wearing them out in the world. She describes it as capturing small pieces of art on a small canvas that can be worn on your face. She produced expressive custom masks for her clients, featuring reproductions of paintings from the old masters, family portraits, pets, favorite animals and hobbies.
When she is not creating mask designs and working on a new series of large scale oil paintings, Yenny enjoys spending time with her daughter Valentina and son Mateo, volunteering for their school and her church, and supporting her husband Vic in their family business.
“Painting has transformed my life through the years…Painting and photography enable me to appreciate the “bigger picture” of what is important in life. I like to create an imaginary world that renders my subjects in a unique way, using unusual colors and perspectives that give people a new perspective to consider.”
To learn more about Yenny LeDoux Zarama’s work, visit www.artistzarama.org or follow her @ArtistZarama.
Want to be featured on The Nashville Sign? Visual artists working in any medium, who are members* of the Arts & Business Council at the Basic Level ($30 annually) or above, are eligible to apply for Artist of the Week on The Nashville Sign.
*Those unable to become members due to financial barriers can be granted a waiver. Contact us at [email protected] to be confidentially considered for a waiver.