The School of Visual Arts

MFA studios are located at 133 West 21st Street in Chelsea.

In both the Fall and in the Spring, the studios are open to the public.

Monica Moran reporting in Manhattan, 3/19/2026

I spoke with Yaya Brown, a second year MFA candidate.

I looked around his studio. The walls were wrappedin a Keith Haring-like — wall‑to‑wall explosion of lines and figures.

I asked him if he was embracing the immersion craze. He replied “No” and articulated that it was “Just a four wall mural”. I didn’t mistake his easygoing manner for uncertainty — when he talked about his art, he was precise.

A young man smiling, wearing a baseball cap backwards and a blue shirt with an orange dragon design, standing in front of a colorful graffiti wall.

Yaya Brown, a second year MFA candidate, standing next to his wall mural.

Vibrant, abstract mural with a face, colorful zigzag lines, and patterns of animals, trees, and geometric shapes in black, purple, yellow, green, orange, and red.
A colorful art studio with a purple wall painting of a cartoon face with big eyes and a small mouth, decorated with multicolored squiggly lines and shapes. In the foreground, a mannequin head with a wig made of multicolored pom-poms. There are art supplies, a sunflower in a small vase, and various tools scattered around.

A sculpture in the center of the installation at first appeard random in its placement. However, I soon discovered an interplay with my mobile device that seemed deliberate.

“Looking at it, I wondered if you made the installation with mobile screens in mind — the way people would first encounter it through a phone?”

Yaya seemed to agree but didn’t commit to a “yes” or “no” response.

Gallery visits are one of the major features of the SVA MFA program. “Which galleries do you usually gravitate toward?” I asked. “Mmuseumm,” he said without hesitating. “Two m’s in the beginning and end.”

The installation opens into something more layered the longer you sit with it.

Yaya Brown’s work has a talent for distilling a whole atmosphere into a single gesture and makes a clear distinction between the artist and the work of art. Personalization becomes that much more difficult in a hyper-personalized culture.

Colorful, cartoon-style illustration depicting various hands holding paintbrushes and spray paint cans, with vibrant abstract backgrounds and patterns.

Detail of Yaya Brown’s four wall mural.