Sergio Yepes

Sergio Yepes | Amatista | 2025

You’ve mentioned that your work is deeply influenced by your encounters with Amazonian elders and the Yagé tradition. How did those experiences first enter your life?

A friend of a cousin invited me to a Yagé session back in 1995. At the time I was deep into a drugs, sex, and rock and roll kind of life, street fighting a lot. But it took me three years and getting to a regrettable place in my life for me to heed the invitation.

It wasn’t until a psilocybin mushroom experience with a girlfriend that I really felt a call from the elders, a U-turn for my life.

I had a visionary experience where I saw as many as thirty Yagé Taitas in a ceremony in the Amazon; one of them approached us and told us to get ready. That was 1997, but it took almost a year for the door to open again: mid-1998, it saved my life; they saved my life.

Sergio Yepes | Cuarzo De Mamo | 2023

What aspects of the Yagé ceremonies or teachings most strongly shaped your artistic vision?

A little context: at age 9, 1975 to be precise, my mom returned from a six-month stay in the Vaupes region; amongst many things, she brought back two traditional wooden benches, “pensadores” or knowledge benches: one for me and one for my brother.

Its simple yet sophisticated geometries awed me then and still awe me now, so the influence of Amazonian shamanism was already in my life.

But if I need to put it into words, it would be the search for balance from within and its expression on any given canvas through geometric patterns or drawings. In an attempt to manifest sound, vibration, and healing through those patterns and combinations of colors. Respect for our common Native ancestors, and respect for Mother Earth.

Sergio Yepes | Obsidiana Mahogany | 2025

How do you translate a spiritual or visionary experience into a geometric visual language?

It’s a meditation, a conversation with the spirits of the jungle. With the spirits of Yagé and other medicines I had the opportunity of meeting, normally I sit with my Mambe (roasted and pulverized Coca leaves and ashes of Yarumo tree leaves) in order to concentrate and reach deep within me and my experiences and memory of visions. I deconstruct my original visions; I let myself be permeated by all my cultural and aesthetic background, and I sift it until I can read the imagery, until it is clear enough.

When you create these digital “crystals,” do you begin from a specific vision, or do the forms emerge intuitively as you work?

As I said before, it all starts as a meditation, a deep dive into my memories, in my inner image bank of visionary experiences, and my frequent visits to the Gold Museum in Bogotá.

That said, the process is indeed pretty much intuitive. I start with some basic geometric figures, and I mix them, I mesh them, and I cut them into smaller pieces and mix them again. Meanwhile, I follow my mood of the day or the evening; sometimes I get to a point where I find a basic form that tells me something, and it leads me somewhere into the elder sphere, the Amazon, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, shamanic gold figures, or beadwork.

Sergio Yepes | Piedra De Trueno De Taita Junglero | 2023

How do color vibrations and symmetry play a role in the healing or meditative qualities of your art?

If my art can be perceived as contemplative and soothing, then there is your answer: it works. Beyond that, it’s a matter of how the colors talk to me; what color combinations do the resulting geometries ask for? I have a tendency for earthy, vibrant, flowery, luminous colors.

Since it is digital art, I work with a Pantone Coated palette, my favorite.

Sergio Yepes | Yauto KofáN Vibrando En CuracióN | 2023

You’ve spoken openly about being neurodivergent and living with bipolar disorder. How does this affect your creative rhythm and perception of reality?

I do my best to lead a balanced life; I do not overwork myself, and I meditate and exercise regularly. I eat good food, and my sleep patterns tend to be normal.

About perceptions of reality, shamanism has given me tools to better understand myself, and as long as I do not walk into a manic state, I perceive reality just fine, lol.

Sergio Yepes | Zafiro | 2023

Do you find that your art acts as a form of therapy or self-balance for you?

Indeed I do; in fact, I’ve been using my art practice as therapy. It has helped me navigate my darkest moments of depression, that and journaling. I use all creative tools at my disposal as therapeutic instruments, as outlets, and as forms of registry of my most intense manic states.