Virtual Exhibition and Online Artist Talk with Yanira Vissepó
Yanira Vissepó: Shared Terrain
July 31 – September 25, 2026
Online Artist talk: September 15, 11 a.m. CDT
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“As an artist living in the diaspora — I represent ideas of transition, environmental impacts, and impose healing through bursts of deep colors, vibrant organic forms, and stylized landscapes.”
— Vissepó
Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, Yanira Vissepó moved to Tennessee during her youth. Now based in Nashville, she is a multidisciplinary artist and educator whose textile paintings, prints, and fiber works explore identity, ecology, and the diasporic experience. Her practice bridges the landscapes, flora, and cultural histories of Puerto Rico and the American South, creating imagined environments that celebrate resilience, healing, and belonging.
Largely self-taught, Vissepó considers drawing the foundation of her practice. Her sketches evolve through linocut and Mokuhanga (the traditional Japanese art of water-based woodblock printmaking) before being transformed into layered textile collages on painted linen. Combining fluid acrylic backgrounds, hand-printed forms, embroidery, and fabric, she merges traditional craft with contemporary abstraction. Vissepó acknowledges that she needs to create in order to feel well, and finds that time away from the studio takes a toll.
Native plants from Puerto Rico and the American South, including dogwood, iris, rhododendron, and broadleaf plantain, recur throughout her work as symbols of connection, adaptation, and healing. By blending distinct ecosystems, Vissepó creates fantastical landscapes. The slow, meticulous process of cutting, printing, and assembling each composition is both meditative and essential to her well-being, resulting in works that convey joy and hope.
Lake Eden Makes Me Feel emerged from Vissepó’s residency at Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center on the historic Lake Eden campus in North Carolina. Inspired by the surrounding landscape, the work features blooming dogwoods, rhododendrons, and eastern swallowtail butterflies rendered in coastal hues that connect the Appalachian South with Puerto Rico. Witnessing the dogwoods at peak bloom during the residency, and recognizing their significance as North Carolina’s state flower, led the blossom to become a recurring motif in her work.
Through teaching in museums, libraries, and community spaces, she advocates for making art accessible to all, believing that creative expression should exist beyond traditional academic pathways. Her work is included in Nashville collections such as those of the Metro Arts Lending Library, Soho House Nashville, and the Vanderbilt Museum of Art. Solo exhibitions include shows at ZieherSmith in Nashville; Elephant Gallery in Nashville; Sheet Cake Gallery in Memphis; and Lyndon House Arts Center in Athens, Georgia. In 2025, she was featured on the PBS program ArtsBreak.
That dialogue between observation and imagination continues in Radiant Light in the Mind. Inspired by the broadleaf plantain, a common Southern plant celebrated for its medicinal qualities, Vissepó repeats and transforms its form into an entirely new species. The work reflects her ongoing interest in inventing botanical worlds where ecosystems merge, familiar plants evolve, and landscapes become sites of possibility, healing, and abundance.
Many of the works in this exhibition will be on view August 27-September 25 at the University School of Nashville. To learn more about her practice, visit her website. For inquiries about available works, contact ZieherSmith.
