Marc Yankus
By Anne Telford
His photographs are the sort of images one could imagine Emily Dickinson producing, had she changed her medium. The alchemy of camera, Photoshop and an eye keen to capture visual tableaus has produced a body of work perfectly suited to adorn the covers of contemporary novels, Broadway posters and CDs for clients including, among others, Pantheon Books, Knopf, Penguin, Little Brown + Co., St. Martins Press and Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
New York photographer Marc Yankus, most fairly should be labeled “artist,” for his photographs combine traditional and digital photography with another level of artistry achieved through technology and composition. Artist is how he sees himself. He’s been a beta tester for Adobe, putting Photoshop through rigorous paces. Occasionally, he even designs typography for a project. He designs his own mailers, which are striking compilations of new work, paced like a photography book, without extraneous descriptions of style and approach. “When I found my niche, in the style I’m working in now, I also at the same time became very focused on my marketing,” he says. “Over the last five years, I have targeted my mailers to a very small audience. I really love doing book covers and I have kept to that one area. Now I want to expand; I want to do many things. My mailing list has grown dramatically.” Yankus’s studio is a convenient twenty-minute walk from his West Village apartment, normally arrived at by bus. At the end of a long day behind the computer, he opts for a three-minute cab ride home.
Behind a door inlaid with carved shee-sham wood panels on an upper floor of the Korean American Association Build-ing in downtown Manhattan is his modest studio. Outside one window is a perfect example of his artistry: a still life of plants, rubber insects, an abandoned pigeon egg and a nest fabricated from a dead plant. He’s not photographed it yet, but clearly it is only a matter of time until it is documented. Across the way, a former parking garage is being trans-formed into condos, a lift periodically shoots up the side of the building, adding a surreal note to the environs. Inside, weathered grapevines hang from the exposed ceiling pipes, another organic touch.
The 14’ x 25’ space is neatly and efficiently organized. Jobs are labeled and filed in archival boxes. A shelf displays a row of book covers he has illustrated. Utilizing the advantages of Mac OS X, he points out, his computer files are neatly organized as well. It’s evident that patience, persistence and a calm steady approach are hallmarks of his approach. Yankus, 45, is an earnest and open person, ably living up to the moniker Right: Griffon Books fall catalog cover. “I pho-tographed the spine of an old French diction-ary and turned it on its side. Taking it out of context it looked like a mountain range landscape. I wanted to create this other world with the golden leaf with light illuminating from it and the small figure at the top of the leaf that I call The Leaf Goddess.” Michael Storrings, art director. taken for his self-designed Web site; www.marcyankus.com.
At work he is kept company by Pei-Pei and Padaqui, large yellow and black-and-white cats owned by an artist who occupies the adjacent rooms of the 3,500 square foot loft which shares a kitchen/bath area. Buttery-colored walls display a few large prints and a convex mirror. Two plastic oh chairs, a vintage game table and a com-fortable, if slightly-furry couch, occupy the center of his workspace. A long table hosts an Epson 2200 printer and a Mac G4 dual processor computer. These days Yankus uses a Canon EOS 1DS camera, and has been experimenting with night photography. He double-clicks on a file and eagerly demonstrates an effect in Photoshop 7, transforming a portrait of a black cat from friendly to demonic.
Over his 23 years as an illustrator and photographer, he has continually evolved his approach and style. “I’m interested in exploring art and developing as an artist,” he says, in his soft-spoken way. As a child growing up in New York City he frequently visited the Museum of Modern Art with his mother—a potter who makes beautiful Mimbres-style ceramics. He finds inspiration in the work of Joseph Cornell, Mark Rothko and Eric Fischel—all artists whose work could be described as introspective and nuanced. Henri Cartier-Bresson is the only photographer he cites, and that too makes sense when one considers the impact of his layered photography is to create a sense of history and a hint of mystery.
“I’ve always had a passion for making art,” he says. He began early; as a child, somewhere from three- to five-years-old, he made his mother a book of drawings and collages. Yankus studied art at the High School of Art and Design and later attended the School of Visual Arts, studying fine art for two years, before switching to illustration in his third year. After an illness at age twenty left him bedridden for several months, he began to assemble collages combining historical engravings, which led to assignments for the New York Times and the Saturday Evening Post. He started experimenting with photography as he traveled through Africa and Europe in the 1980s, living for a time in Amsterdam. His work was included in a group exhibition, The Great East River Bridge, at the Brooklyn Museum in 1983 and he has shown in other galleries.
The next step was to incorporate his photography into the mix. “It added a whole new dimension to my work. I was able to get right angles that I wanted, the images were richer. I became so much more involved,” Yankus explains. “Over time—because I’ve always thought of myself as an illustrator—people started to refer to me as a photographer and that confused me. I didn’t think of myself as a photographer, it biased me. Now I’m more comfortable with that title,” Yankus says, then adds. “I make images—art.” Since then he has had his work included in the AIGA 50 Books 50 Covers shows for 2000 and 2001, and photographs he made on September 11 are included in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. Many things fell into place this past year for Yankus: He has been in discussion with several book publishers, he took on assignments for Broadway show posters and two of his works were selected for the Society of Illustrators exhibition, among other professional coups.
His book covers have perhaps drawn the most attention. It is an area in which his thoughtful, moody compositions excel in conveying a sense of the author’s approach. Yankus often blurs an image or adds evidence of age to his portraits or landscapes, inviting the viewer to add their own memories or meaning. Some jobs are straight photography or photomontage, but lean more toward photography than illustration. Assignments can take the form of coloring work, textural collage or photo/illustration. The style of art direction he generally receives is to ‘convey a particular emotion.’ Sometimes he will have a manuscript to read. With quick turnaround times for book covers, Yankus sometimes hires a reader to provide him with notes for visual insights or he will ask for a synopsis.
Mario Pulice, art director at Little Brown + Co., has worked with Yankus on several projects. “I enjoy working with Marc because of the sensitivity and perspective he brings to his assignments,” says Pulice. “We always seem to have a good verbal exchange about the assignment, and his enthusiasm is always present. I can also sense his ‘wheels turning’ after we discuss the project and that excites me, since I know he’s not just going to give me whatI’m asking for, but something that has his very distinct mark and viewpoint woven into the piece.
“There are some illustrators, and I really don’t mean this facetiously, who just ‘illustrate’ the art director’s idea. And sometimes that’s fine—and what is needed. Marc’s the guy I call to collaborate on an idea with, and the one I look for a surprise from.” Pulice adds, “I also dig his wicked sense of humor.”
In the early to mid-’90s, Yankus moved into experimentation with animation using Adobe Premiere, and then After Effects, although so far he has not widely incorporated animation into his commercial projects. (Examples can be found on his Web site.) “I’m exploring a deeper connection with myself to move my work to another level,” he says. “I’m interested in working with graphic designers on unique projects. I’m also interested in pursuing moving images whether video or film for TV or the cinema.” He’d also like to do more film and Broadway theater posters, and in the fine art world, he wants to develop theme-based photography books and gallery exhibitions. “That’s really what I want in the future. I want to exhibit and continue to do interesting commercial projects, and expand my market. And I am.”
April 2003