Meet Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle aka Olomidara Yaya | Interdisciplinary Artist, Writer & Healer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle aka Olomidara Yaya and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kenyatta, do you disagree with some advice that is more or less universally accepted?
Artists and creatives must have a lot of money or a huge studio space to make work and/or succeed. I made some of my most powerful works on a fold-up card table in a tiny studio apartment. This does not mean that artists have to struggle all the time because grants, collectors, and funding can be significant to help one reach higher heights in terms of realizing projects, shifting scale, and having the freedom to take more risks. Still, I think that too often, creatives can use being rejected or closed off from funding and opportunities as an excuse for why they cannot be creative or find ways to do their work regardless of their circumstances. One of my favorite pieces of all time is David Hammons’ “Bliz-aard Ball Sale” in which he stood outside and sold snowballs in Harlem near street vendors. The snowballs were arranged according to size on a blanket on the ground. He is such an iconic trickster and is still riffing off of the piece to this day! This performance is a beautiful homage to how BIPOC creatives make a way out of no way and use the resources around them. This piece showed me that you can use some frozen water to make a powerful critique of capitalism, industry, the marketplace, and street hustling in America. I began to realize that my ideas are currency and wealth, not necessarily focusing on having specific high-end resources to make them a reality every time I want to create or do something powerful.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I am a multidisciplinary visual artist, writer, performer, and healer. My practice fluctuates between collaborations and participatory projects with alternative gallery spaces within various communities to projects that are intimate and based upon my private experiences in relationship to historical events and contexts. My practice serves as a bridge, merging the intersections of art, activism, spirituality, and healing as tools for retrieval. My healing practice consists of being a catalyst for retrieval through reiki, sound healing, divination, channeling, and mediumship. A term that has become a mantra for my practice is the “Historical Present,” as I examine the residue of history and how it affects our contemporary world perspective. What sets my work apart from others is that I am not afraid to make work that haunts, allows the dead to speak, and is critical of how our shared past informs our present. If my work does not make me uncomfortable, I don’t want to do it. I am fascinated with what art has the power to do and how it can inspire me and others to ask difficult questions about ourselves, history, and the society we choose to live in or want to build.

I have majored in art since middle school. I attended a magnet high school for art and youth performing arts called duPont Manual Highschool in Lousiville, KY and then went on to attend The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and The California Institute of Art (CalArts). Immediately after graduate school, my career received a major boost. I was included in the exhibition “Fore” at The Studio Museum in Harlem and was the youngest participant in the very first Made in LA Biennial (2012), all in the same year. So, I had a pretty powerful foundation starting off.

I am the daughter of a DJ and factory laborer and a first generation graduate from college in my family, so this major boost early on took me to really powerful heights. Getting there was not easy. Just to get me to college in Baltimore, my godmother sold my high school artwork from her trunk. I also had been working for the City of Louisville as a Youth Artist in The Studio 2000 program since I was a freshman in high school. I have always taken pride in my tenacity, and I have had the kindness of so many powerful teachers and community members who pitched in along the journey. Emerging artists need as much help, support, encouragement, art sales, guidance, and everything else in order to succeed and I would be no where without my village.

In addition to being an artist, I also love being a business person in which I have created KACH Studio in 2012 when I graduated from CalArts. It has evolved into a publishing project, online viewing gallery, blog, sonic healing services, podcast, and so many other branches. Our motto is ” Empowerment for seekers through sonics and art.”

Because I was coming up before people really understood what it mean to have a multi and interdisciplinary practice it was hard to be understood until I realized that I didn’t have to be. I realized that I could use my art practice to create my own genres and terms of engagement. Having an imagination is a major asset especially while living in a society that slowly strips it away as early as primary school. It is my goal to help myself and others retrieve parts of our collective imagination as a way to remix and reimagine who and what we want to become.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I really love mom n pop diners and establishments, so if my best friend comes to LA for a week, I would take her to my top favorite spots:

Wah Gwaan in Leimert Park
Roscoes Chicken & Waffles in Inglewood
Cindy’s diner in Eaglerock
Tacos Por Favor in Santa Monica
Cafe Brasil in Culver City
Merkato in Little Ethiopia
Saffron & Rose in Westwood

We also would stop by the Museum of Jurassic Technology, LACMA, and CAAM in LA, and one of my favorite things to do is to go to the Rose Garden near USC and the California Science Museum to sit on the gigantic roots of the magnolia trees that line the entrance to the rose garden. That has to be one of my favorite spots in the whole world!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to dedicate my Shoutout to the amazing artist Alison Saar, whom I have been a fan girl of since high school. She and her artwork have such a powerful presence, and she has always supported my career from a very early age. Meeting her and working with her has been a literal dream come true and everytime our work is featured together or enter into collections together I am in awe of this whole journey that a little girl from Louisville, KY could only dream about. She is a beacon for many Black femme creatives in California and beyond, and I am so honored to know her and have had her be a huge part of my journey.

The collectors Joy Simmons, Aryn Drake-Lee and many others purchased my early works and have continued to support my career and journey thus far. I am so grateful to them for all that they do. To my best friend of 25 years, London Smith, who is a daily blessing and force of nature that always keeps me grounded and laughing. The artists Tiffany Smith, Jen Everett, and Phylica Ghee, who are beyond talented and filled with so much love and light, and constantly inspire me with their powerful friendship, photography, and storytelling practices. Lastly, I could not do this journey without the presence of my beautiful child, who gives me so much hope, positivity, and inspiration daily. Not just because I am their mother but because I am building worlds for them to walk in with beauty and pride in everything that I do.

Website: www.kachstudio.com

Instagram: @kachstudio

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenyatta-a-c-hinkle-57069475/

Facebook: KACH Studio

Youtube: www.youtube.com/@kachstudio8170

Image Credits
All images courtesy of KACH Studio