Talya Whyte

b. 1999, Montgomery, Alabama. Based in New York.

Talya Whyte (yaya) is a self-taught oil painter born to Guyanese and Jamaican parents.

yaya’s work explores ecology, consciousness, mysticism, and futurism. She draws inspiration from her family’s photo and journal archives charting their migration from the Caribbean to the United States.

yaya uses paint as a portal, transporting the viewer into her world as seen through memories, dreams, intuition, and dissociative states. Her practice is informed by the surrealist movement and related psychoanalytic thought.

Whyte has a BS in Psychology from the University of Alabama (2021) and a JD from New York University School of Law (2024).