Yamilet Sempé is a Cuban-born, French-American artist with an established international profile.
Sempé works in lyrical and intuitive abstraction as well as geometric abstraction, also incorporating geometry through watercolor.
She has been recognized in the arts through press coverage, critical reviews, literature, awards, high profile commissions, and international fine art auctions.
Her work addresses spiritual themes related to mysticism and the esoteric through a carefully structured symbolic language.
Among the distinctive features that define her practice are the constant use of the color orange as a symbol of vital energy, transformation, and spiritual expansion, as well as the presence of the orb, a representation of the Rose of Jericho and an emblem of immortality, through which the artist expresses her conviction that both art and the soul are eternal.
She began creating art in her youth when she was mentored by the famed Cuban artist Modesto García. As an adult, she relocated to France where she became immersed in its renowned art scene. While living in France, she participated on an ambitious arts restoration project of the historic castle Chateau du Beyrat in France, during which she personally executed the restoration of the chateau’s frescos and coats of arms, as well as designed new outdoor elements with walkways and sculpture.
Sempé draws influence from several artistic sources, including the Bauhaus movement, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Hilma af Klint, Emma Kunz, as well as leading Cuban artists José Mijares and Zilia Sanchez.
Her work has been exhibited and sold alongside Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Carmen Herrera, Wilfredo Lam, Rufino Tamayo, Yayoi Kusama, Agustín Cardenas, Beatriz Milhazes, Gabriel Orozco, Jesús Rafael Soto, and Yoshitomo Nara.
As one of the few internationally active female artists of Cuban origin who are working within lyric and geometric abstraction, Sempé has been the focus of several critiques, including by Greek professor Héctor Haralambous, who has written of her geometric piece Equilibrium. Her work has also appeared in published literature, such as the American Trappist monk and priest Thomas Keating, such as her abstract piece Path of Light (private collection Florida).
Sempé’s work is in permanent collection in Museums, Libraries and Universities. It has sold through the important French auction house Drouot as well as Artprice and Phi Auctions.
(All artworks are copyright)