DonYé Taylor

Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, USA

Artist statement

Growing up, no one ever suggested that I might have a learning difference or a mental health diagnosis. I wasn’t labeled with autism, ADHD, or anything like that. On the outside, I seemed to move through the world like everyone else. But inside, I always felt different. The way I thought, the way I processed experiences, the way I absorbed life, it never quite matched the way people around me seemed to. For a long time, I didn’t have language for that difference. I just knew it existed. As I got older, that difference started pressing on me more strongly, like it was asking to be understood. I felt this deep, almost urgent need to know myself better. Writing became my way in. I began journaling not just about what happened in my life, but how those moments landed in my body and my mind - how I felt in friendships, how I processed conflict at work, how I moved through personal struggles. Eventually, I started giving names to those patterns. I would “diagnose” myself not in a clinical sense, but in a creative one. I created little systems for what I was feeling, with symptoms and treatment plans that helped me map my inner world. It was my way of organizing the intangible, of giving shape to emotions that didn’t always have a home. When I started sharing those reflections online, I was surprised by what came back. People saw themselves in my words. Creatives in particular told me they had never felt so understood, and suddenly I wasn’t just writing for myself, I was writing...

Artwork