Nina Tichava – When the last sun hung on the hills 1 (Weaving)


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SKU: 24792

Artwork Description

When the last sun hung on the hills 1 (Weaving)

Dimensions: 42.5 x 42.5″
Year: 2015
Media: acrylic, ink, pencil, paper on panel

Tichava’s mixed media work is both formally and texturally complex; from a greater distance the work appears to be primarily composed of layered vertical lines, yet more focused visual analysis reveals underlying circular forms and intersecting linear elements that move diagonally throughout the work. Tichava’s maternal connections to New Mexican weaving allow Tichava to suggest various processes within a single work, where her painting is at once two and three dimensional.

Nina Tichava draws from her familial and personal ties to New Mexico to inform a body of work that can be described as both organic and geometric. Building upon her parents’ artistic practices, including photography and weaving, Tichava uses visual language to reference Native American culture and overcome the barriers imposed by her non-native heritage. While her mixed media works often use repetitive patterning, Tichava describes her work as abstract and informed by artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Agnes Martin, and Frank Stella. Her work relies on processes of layering, building intricate patterning and layers of pigment to generate finished products that are at once auto-biographical and visually complex; by superimposing colors and shapes, Tichava suggests that the various layers reference layers of personal experience. Tichava uses materials such as paper, paint, and beads to render three-dimensional weaving onto otherwise two-dimensional canvases, allowing her to work as weaver, painter, and sculptor and produce works that cannot be defined by a single genre.

By Keira Seidenberg, Art History/Gender Studies student, McGill University