Nina Tichava

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Nina Tichava 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 her mother, an artist and designer. The reflections of these dualities: country to city, pragmatist to artist, nature to technology, are essential to and evident in her paintings.Nina Tichava received her BFA from California College of the Arts [+ Crafts]. She lives and works in New Mexico Nina is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award Grant in 2007 and has exhibited professionally since 2009.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My paintings are about relationships; I’m interested in the interactions between materials and methods as well as the color and spatial relationships that naturally develop in process. My works are emotional and imperfect, and as objects they embody my response to things mass produced and idealized. The paintings are collections of moments from daily life: combined glimpses, thoughts, memories and objects. I am trying to describe not only what things look like, but also how they might feel.

My process-based paintings are as unplanned as possible. I search to convey a feeling of immediacy and to enhance the very physical and tactile elements of my artwork. The presence and feeling of my hand is essential to the work and ultimately my focus. Using painting and printmaking techniques, I interweave drawing and collage with a variety of media. Simultaneously painterly and constrained, my paintings are composed of complex layers, many of which are over-painted and concealed. A prominent element of my work is the application of thousands of beads of paint, painstakingly and individually painted with a brush and used to create screens and patterns. I describe my work as “abstract painting with botanical and architectural references”, as the pieces suggest natural forms (birds, leaves, branches), man-made structures (buildings, windows, lights) and patterning both natural and designed (woven fabrics, strata of earth, pixels).

SELECTED SHOWS

Mirage, 2022, Laura Rathe Fine Art, Houston Texas

Movement Patterns, 2022, Gallery MAR, Park City, Utah

Lyrical Movements, 2022, Laura Rathe Fine Art, Dallas, Texas

New Works, 2022, Gallery Wild, Jackson, Wyoming

Borrowed Landscapes, January 2021, K Contemporary, Denver CO

You Color the Sky, September 2020, K Contemporary, Denver CO

Brilliant Refraction with R.Nelson Parish, March 2020, Gallery MAR, Park City UT

Beyond Boundaries with Matt Devine, October 2019, Laura Rathe Fine Art, Dallas, TX

Glitched with Shawn Smith, June 2019, Turner Carroll Gallery, Santa Fe

Same As It Ever Was, November 2018, K Contemporary, Denver

Project: Borrowed Landscapes [Erected], July 2018, K Contemporary, Denver