bex ya yolk

bex ya yolk (they/them) is a visual artist, graphic designer, book maker, and adjunct professor based in Chicago, IL. yolk received a BFA in Graphic Design from Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts and an MFA in Visual Communication Design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a concentration in Book Arts as a full merit scholar. yolk has received grant endowment from the Atlanta Contemporary, Codex International Biennial Artists' Book Fair and Symposium, the College Book Art Association, VCUarts Adjunct Faculty Research, and the Judith Alexander Foundation. They are a BOLT artist-in-residence at the Chicago Artist Coalition, 2024-2026.

yolk is the founder of an artists’ book bindery + publishing initiative—THUNGRY which focuses on disrupting what qualifies a Book, complicating traditional ways of book building + semantics through experimentation and queering praxis. THUNGRY explores historical research, sociology, and speculative theory into 'the Maternal Complex' made up of subgenres like care work, reproductive design, abortion access activism, reproductive justice and health care disparity, maternal identities, and the gestational state especially in queer folx exploring the intersectionalities between the Book + these kinds of bodies.