The Shape of Memory with Yvonne McCoy

Yvonne McCoy creates work that asks you to slow down and feel before you try to understand. Based in Decatur, Georgia, her multidisciplinary practice moves through collage and large scale mixed media, building layered compositions from her own film photography. Each piece functions less as a single image and more as an environment, where memory, tension, and emotion exist at the same time.

Her approach is rooted in spatial awareness. She thinks in shape, weight, rhythm, and negative space, arranging materials with intention to create work that feels both structured and alive. What emerges is not just something to look at, but something to sit with.

Much of her work is driven by a textured sense of memory. Not nostalgia as something soft or distant, but something layered with experience. Childhood, survival, work culture, and emotional complexity all intersect, creating pieces that feel deeply personal while still leaving room for interpretation.

“When I create, nostalgia is usually the first thing that comes up. It’s not soft. It feels textured.”

That texture becomes the language of her work. Moments of beauty sit alongside tension. Stillness meets movement. There is no need to resolve the feeling, only to hold it.

Creating, for McCoy, is also a form of resistance. A way of stepping outside of urgency and expectation.

“Creating feels like slowing down on purpose, like choosing feeling over performance.”

Outside of her practice, inspiration comes from everyday life. Family, travel, large bodies of water, and quiet moments at home all shape how she gathers and processes ideas. In this current chapter, much of that grounding comes from her role as a mother, guiding how she moves both personally and creatively.

At the center of it all is a simple intention. Not to tell the viewer what to feel, but to create space for them to return to something within themselves.

“I hope they feel themselves. Like they’re returning to something they forgot existed.”

McCoy’s work does not rush to be understood. It invites you to stay a little longer, to look again, and to recognize that feeling is often the first language we have.

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