Artist Statement:
Pulling imagery and motif from organic form, architecture, media and design I create densely layered, mixed-media paintings that are deeply invested in process. I’m interested in the overlap of nature and culture and the patterns present in both; the tension between them drives my exploration of color, surface and materiality.
Employing labor-intensive techniques, I blend painting, collage and printmaking processes. I primarily work on wood in multiple panels, incorporating paint, charcoal, ink, paper, graphite, pen, canvas and metal. Simultaneously free and constrained, my paintings are composed of numerous overlapping layers, many of which are obscured in the cumulative evolution of a finished piece. A prominent element of my work is the application of thousands of beads of paint, painstakingly and individually applied with a brush and used to create screens, patterns and color gradations. My work is best described 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).
Reproduction and repetition being central themes, my paintings are responses to things mass-produced and processed to an ideal. My paintings are, by nature, imprecise and hand-made objects. Perfection is unattainable therefore each piece is unique—it is this inherent quality that continues to engage me in painting.
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 by her mother, who was 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 is the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award Grant in 2007 and has exhibited professionally since 2009. Her work is featured in numerous private, corporate and public collections. She received her BFA from California College of the Arts [+ Crafts] in San Francisco/Oakland and has exhibited in major national art fairs including Miami, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Dallas, New York, Aspen, Seattle and San Francisco.
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