Nina Tichava’s mixed media paintings are what she calls ‘a history of surface’, created using techniques found in screen printing, wood block printing and etching to create wonderful layered geometric patterns; dots, circles and abstract forms.
Tichava’s paintings are made up of a series of diametrically opposed ideas, dichotomies that are tied up in her own history. Raised in rural New Mexico her work is rooted in craft, handmade objects and traditional pattern making while her processes are urban, take their cue from mass production, consumerism, the American dream. This clash of ideas, form and structure; organic and man made, mass produced and individual, craft and graphic design give much depth to her work, create surfaces that hold a social history, that could perhaps be said to reflect America and its diversity, it’s commingling.
Tichava use of highly textural materials such as copper, resin and brass as well as oil, ink, charcoal, collage and maps all combine to create a visual map of her own duality. Here’s what she has to say about her work:
Pulling imagery and motif from organic form, architecture,media and design I create densely layered, mixed media paintings that are invested in process and grounded in traditional craft.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 technique,I blend painting, printmaking and craft processes. I primarily work on wood and paper in multiple panels,incorporating paint, charcoal, ink, tape, ballpoint 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. 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 handmade objects. Perfection is unattainable therefore each piece is unique — it is this inherent quality that continues to engage me in painting