Nyana Z Bennett

Your collages beautifully reflect themes of identity, migration, and nostalgia. How do you begin the process of creating a new piece?

The process always begins with an emotional spark—something internal. It might be a memory, a piece of music, a line from a poem, or a conversation that lingers with me. As an immigrant, a Caribbean woman, and a single mother, my life experiences are deeply embedded in everything I create. My work is a way of processing those layers—identity, resilience, displacement, and belonging.

Once that initial feeling settles, I start to mentally map out the composition. I don’t always sketch it out formally, but there’s a clear emotional and visual direction in my mind. Then comes the part I love most: diving into my collection of materials. I use magazines and printed ephemera. I sift through them for textures, faces, colors, or objects that resonate with the idea I’m holding onto. Often, I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for until I see it.

The physical act of cutting and arranging is very meditative and intentional. I’m drawn to the tactile nature of analog collage—it allows me to physically deconstruct and reconstruct fragments of everyday life into something new.

My work is a heartfelt reflection of my Caribbean culture, heritage, and the nostalgia that binds them. As an immigrant, a single mother, and a woman, I pour my experiences—both the struggles and the triumphs—into each collage I create. My pieces are analog stories of resilience, identity, and memory.

The creative process begins internally, with a mental composition shaped by thoughts, memories, emotions, and lived experience. I draw inspiration from a wide spectrum of sources—poetry, music, conversations, spiritual reflections, and the emotions that linger from everyday life. These elements stir something within me, and from there, the idea for a new piece begins to take form.

Scenes and subjects that captivate me are often rooted in my cultural background and the immigrant experience. These influences pull me in, urging me to explore the complexity of my journey and the richness of the traditions I carry. There is a deep emotional and metaphysical connection to the work—I’m not just creating images; I’m building narratives from the fragments of life.

Once the vision starts to form, I sift through collected materials—magazines, clippings, and paper fragments—looking for images that speak to the mood and message I want to convey. It’s a hands-on, tactile process: gathering, cutting, arranging, and pasting. Each piece is meticulously assembled, allowing me to physically reshape everyday imagery into something new and extraordinary.

Through this method, I aim to elevate the ordinary into something deeply meaningful. My collages invite viewers into my world—to see not only the beauty of my Caribbean roots but also the layers of experience, spirituality, and emotion that shape who I am.

What role does your Caribbean heritage play in shaping the stories you tell through your art?

My heritage is at the core of my artistic identity. It influences the themes I explore, the colors I gravitate toward, and the rhythms that pulse through my work. Whether it’s through visual symbolism, storytelling, or cultural references, I find myself drawing from the resilience, and vibrancy of the Caribbean.

There’s a deep sense of legacy—both joyful and painful—that I aim to honor. The fusion of African, Indigenous, European, and Asian influences in Caribbean culture creates a layered narrative that I feel compelled to represent authentically. My work often reflects on identity, diaspora, spirituality, and memory, all rooted in that heritage.

My art is how I preserve cultural memory while also contributing to the evolving story of what it means to be Caribbean today.

Nyana Z Bennett | Blenchi (Hummingbird)

You describe collage as a ritual. Can you share what this ritual looks like for you—mentally, emotionally, and physically?

Describing collage as a ritual means recognizing it as a practice that goes beyond just assembling images—it becomes a meaningful, often meditative process. Here’s how that ritual might unfold mentally, emotionally, and physically:

Mentally

Collage begins with a shift in perception. It’s not just about finding images, but about seeing differently, seeing potential in scraps, textures, fragments. The mind becomes more open, associative, playful. There’s often no fixed outcome in mind; instead, intuition leads. It’s about embracing randomness and then discovering connections where none were obvious before.

It can feel like the quieting of the inner noise. Thoughts begin to flow laterally—more poetic than logical.

Emotionally

There’s a subtle emotional excavation that happens during collage-making. Images pulled from old books, magazines, or printed materials carry their own histories. When you cut them out and recontextualize them, you’re creating new emotional narratives—sometimes surprising yourself with what emerges.

There’s catharsis in cutting, tearing, arranging—transforming fragments into something whole. It can feel grounding, tender, even rebellious.

Physically

The tactile nature of collage is key to the ritual. Touching paper, feeling the edges, the pressure of scissors, the glide of glue—these physical actions slow the body down and anchor it in the moment. There’s a rhythm: gather, cut, arrange, pause, adjust, glue. It becomes embodied.

Many collage artists describe their workspace almost like an altar—materials laid out in a way that invites attention and care. Sometimes there’s music, silence, incense—anything that supports presence.

In short, collage as a ritual is less about producing art and more about being with process: listening, noticing, assembling meaning from the overlooked. It’s a dialogue between self and material—a quiet but powerful act of creation and reflection.

How did your experience as a social worker and a mother influence the emotional layers in your artwork?

My experience as a social worker deeply attuned me to human vulnerability and the quiet strength people carry even in the darkest moments. I’ve sat with stories of trauma, loss, hope, and survival—those narratives became a part of me and inevitably found their way into my artwork. It gave me a profound respect for raw emotion and subtle expressions of pain, healing, and connection.

Motherhood, on the other hand, brought a different kind of intimacy and emotional depth. The intensity of love, the fragility of life, the constant dance between letting go and holding close—it sharpened my sensitivity to the unspoken language of emotion. Through both roles, I learned to observe closely and feel deeply. In my artwork, I try to create spaces where those layered experiences can be felt and seen, not just understood.

Nyana Z Bennett | Brasa Mi. (Hold Me)

The materials in your pieces often feel deeply symbolic. How do you choose your images and textures?

Symbolism often emerges through repetition and contrast. I’ll pair softness with something rigid, or decay with a sense of quiet order, to reflect the kinds of internal conflicts or transformations I’m interested in. I also look to dreams, cultural stories, and literature for inspiration.

I treat image-hunting like a form of listening. It’s rarely about what the image is, but what it feels like. A torn edge, an unfurled flower, a strange silhouette—these things hold a kind of emotional charge I can’t always explain at first.

For me, collage is about creating a visual language out of what’s been discarded or overlooked and letting new stories rise through the layers.

Your return to art during the pandemic sounds like a powerful moment. How has your artistic journey evolved since then?

Returning to art during the stillness of the pandemic brought a kind of urgency in creating—like I needed to make sense of the quiet, the grief, the uncertainty. At first, it was raw and instinctive. I wasn’t thinking about the outcome, just expression.

Since then, my practice has deepened. I’ve become more intentional, more curious about the dialogue between materials and meaning. I’m exploring slower processes, giving more attention to texture and repetition. There’s a clearer sense of voice now—still evolving, of course—rooted in that same impulse to piece together what feels broken or forgotten.

Nyana Z Bennett | Cocolishi

In what ways do you hope viewers connect with your work, especially those who share similar immigrant experiences?

I hope viewers—especially those who share similar immigrant experiences—see themselves reflected in my work. Whether it’s through the sense of dislocation, the quiet resilience, or the blending of multiple cultural identities, I want them to feel seen and validated. I hope they can see the complexities of their own journeys reflected in mine. There’s often a loneliness that comes with straddling different worlds, and if my work can offer a moment of recognition or comfort, then it’s done its job. More than anything, I hope it encourages conversations—within families, communities, and across cultures—about the nuances of belonging. I want my pieces to be both a mirror and a bridge—connecting individual stories to a broader, shared human experience.