Yellena James was born in Sarajevo and went to art school there during the civil war. She relocated to the US when she was 18 to study graphic design and illustration. She is now based out of Portland, OR. She has shown her work mostly on the west coast and maintains an Etsy shop where you can buy prints of her work.
James flora and fauna style is inspired by microscopic worlds and the discovering of strange new life forms, plants, and fungi. She loves the complexity of works by Julie Mehretu, Matthew Ritchie, Jacob Magraw, and Jeff Soto. Says James, "I try to create new shapes based on what I imagine to exist within the unseen world around us, and attempt to suggest movements in my designs that we're not accustom to seeing in our everyday lives, to sort-of pass that spark of inspiration on to others as they complete the movements within their own minds."
