Nina Tichava Prints, Posters & Canvas Art

Biography

Nina Tichava, a native New Mexican, was raised in both rural northern New Mexico and the Bay Area in California. She was influenced by her father, a construction worker and mathematician-and by her mother, who is an artist and designer. The reflections of these dualities- from country to city, from pragmatist to artist, from nature to technology-are essential to and evident in her paintings. Nina received her BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts in San Francisco and Oakland. She currently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and co-owns Tichava-Mills Fine Art on Canyon Road. Nina is a 2007 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner foundation award and shows in Scottsdale, AZ, Palm Springs, CA and Santa Fe, NM.

Nina describes her paintings as follows: "My paintings begin with charcoal drawings from life, often of figures or still life objects ranging from grasses and seeds to electrical cords. I develop the paintings organically from those first drawings- abstracting and pulling out shapes and playing with the spatial shift from subject to ground. I work both additionally and subtractively, building and receding, then covering and exposing as I move through numerous layers. I reference textiles and patterned surfaces, using recognizable organic shapes interspersed with more graphic, geometric and abstracted elements.

My work is influenced by and derivative of Abstract Expressionism, Color Field Painting, the Arts and Crafts Movement, Asian art, calligraphy, printmaking, media, design, architecture, textiles, insects and flowers. I am interested in the possibilities inherent in painting; I carry a strong, romantic belief in its tradition."