A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Eden Yono, SAIC faculty, a person with light skin tone and brown hair sitting inside.

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Eden Yono

Lecturer

she/her

Contact

Bio

Eden Yono (b. 1981) lives and works in Chicago, where she received an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Yono’s work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions including Museo de Arte Transfemenino Mexico City, Rhona Hoffman Chicago, Yono has also worked extensively with s+s project in Mexico City and has performed and exhibited at the Centro Cultural del México Contemporáneo. She was the 2016 ACRE Residency performance scholar.

Awards

ACRE performance Scholar; Cultus Artem Emerging Artist Grant.

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibitions: Phantom, Gallery Also, Los Angeles, CA (2023); Flotsam, Shoe Bones, Salem, MA (2023); Impersonator, No Place, Columbus, OH (2023); Interdimensional Femmes, James Fuentes online, New York, NY (2022); Sarafemme, Produce Model, Chicago, IL (2018). 

Two-Person Exhibitions: UNDERSCORE, Milwaukee, WI (2024); VELVET, Leather Archives and Museum, Chicago, IL (2020); Queens Throat, Roots And Culture, Chicago, IL (2019); Ongoing Collaboration, S+S project space, Mexico City, MX (2019). 

Group Exhibitions: Maniquís, Museo Art Transfeminino (MAT), Mexico City (2026); HOLY MOTHER, CALL ME!, GAG Chicago (2026); Echoes of the Self: Contemporary Explorations in Self-Representation, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles (2026); HOOFPRINT, Chicago, IL (2024); Our House, The Plan, Chicago, IL (2024); Our Delicate Armor, Stasias, Chicago, IL (2024); Women On the verge, Rhona Hoffman, Chicago, IL (2023); Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida, Adds Donna, Chicago, IL (2023); What Strange Water, What Strange Air, Tyger Tyger, Asheville, NC (2022); Come out and Play, BEERS, London, UK (2022); Drawers, Adult Contemporary, Nashville, TN (2022); THEM, Roots and Culture, Chicago, IL (2022).

Personal Statement

A core principle of my teaching is helping first-year students trust the process of making and allow their work to lead them. Rather than approaching art with a fixed outcome, I encourage students to follow the material, the mark, and even the mistake as generative forces that reveal new directions. Missteps are not failures but openings—moments where the work begins to think alongside the artist. By paying attention to what the materials do and how they respond, students learn that making art is an experiential dialogue rather than a purely planned act. I emphasize that meaningful work often grows from the energies of one’s lived experience—not necessarily in an explicitly autobiographical way, but through the same emotional, cultural, and perceptual forces that shape our lives. In this way, the studio becomes a place where experimentation, reflection, and personal inquiry guide the development of an authentic artistic voice.

Portfolio

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This immersive experience offers a stimulating environment where young artists can develop as creative individuals while learning to solve problems innovatively. In addition to daily studio art projects, students will keep a sketchbook to capture their research, ideas, and reactions during visits to the renowned Art Institute of Chicago, where they will explore captivating exhibits that inspire new ideas and fuel their imaginations. Campers will enjoy diverse artistic adventures with friends through experiments in painting, drawing, mixed media, sculpture, printmaking, and more, creating lasting memories and friendships. Each session will have a different focus, allowing students who enroll in multiple sessions to encounter new studio projects each time.

Class Number

1012

Credits

2

Description

This camp allows students aged 10-11 to focus on their drawing and painting skills in a highly creative and challenging environment. Through individual and collaborative projects, students explore a range of traditional and experimental materials and techniques. They will learn various drawing methods, building their technical, spatial, and creative abilities while focusing on essential elements of 2D design and art. Students investigate contemporary subjects and themes using pencil, charcoal, pastel, ink, gouache, water-based paint, and mixed media through skills such as line, perspective, tone, proportion, composition, value, gesture, and contour. Inspiration comes from visits to the Art Institute of Chicago Museum to observe and sketch various paintings, sculptures, and objects. This camp, designed for beginners and those looking to develop their drawing and painting skills further, can be repeated for ongoing skill enhancement and idea building.

Class Number

1125

Credits

2

Description

This course provides students with the opportunity to blend traditional techniques with cutting-edge digital methods, as they experiment with a range of media, including drawing, sculpture, image transfer, collage, laser cutting, and 3D printing. Begin with exciting mini-projects and hands-on demonstrations to spark your imagination and get ideas flowing, then refine concepts through engaging discussions before completing a final project that reflects your unique style and interests. Additionally, students will discover the latest trends in art, featuring inspiring work from contemporary artists who are pushing boundaries today.

Class Number

2349

Credits

1

Description

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers.

In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership.

Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

Class Number

1370

Credits

3

Description

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers.

In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership.

Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

Class Number

1248

Credits

3

Description

In this course we will focus on disciplinary and interdisciplinary art and design practices of contemporary art production. This team-taught, year-long class explores the materials and techniques of surface, space, and time (2D, 3D, and 4D), as well as the connections and interplay of these areas. Core Studio integrates the formal with the conceptual, traditional with the contemporary, and makes visible a variety of approaches in current cultural production in order to foster the development of students? emerging practices as makers and thinkers.

In this interdisciplinary studio course students will be authorized to use a variety of school shops, materials and equipment; including the woodshop, plaster studio, digital lab, sewing machine, hand tools, sound and video production, digital workflows and principles of visual fundamentals. This is a hands-on making class, faculty present artists and content related to a particular toolkit and, or project theme. Every section of Core Studio has shared learning outcomes which are uniquely realized by each Core faculty partnership.

Students should expect a fast-paced studio environment. In Core Studio students will complete short assignments as well as longer multi-week projects. Assignments are designed to help students develop their own ideas in relation to the materials, processes, and themes presented by faculty.

Class Number

1252

Credits

3