Yannis Lobaina

Yannis Lobaina is an award-winning Cuban-Canadian artist, author, filmmaker, visual storyteller, emerging podcaster and art curator based in Toronto. As a photographer, Yannis focuses on minimalist landscape photographic storytelling. Her passion is capturing fleeting moments, exploring patterns, Mudras, textures, human form, spirals, and pareidolias (faces) in Mother Nature. Her photography series, including Alive, Upside Down, Catch and Release, and Rebirth has received the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Space Award twice (2020-2022) and the Ontario Arts Council grants (2021 and 2024). Recently, She has been a solo exhibition at Remote Gallery and Public Library Oakwood Village Library and Arts Centre. Her current series, Shinrin Yoku: The Healing Art of Forest Bathing, has received the Ontario Arts Council grants as an individual artist. This series is a collection of minimalist photographic stories where Yannis found magic, awe and strange beauty in the unexpected and unconventional landscape. The sheer serenity, the outbreak of minty joy accompanied by a lift of respect for the Land. Through her lens, Yannis transforms these ephemeral moments into timeless visual poetry. Yannis’ visual influences are poetry, meditation and photographers and artists like Ana Mendieta, Vivian Maier, Amy Friend, Georgia O’Keeffe and Teju Cole. Her artwork has also been featured in Literary magazines and book collections Like Arte y Literatura Hispano Canadiense, Polyglot Magazine, Analogies and Allegories, and private collections.