Tea Drawings

In this series, I have deviated from my more emotive and colorful paintings. These drawings are still, contemplative, and peaceful. I used plant medicines and herbal teas to stain the paper and a single black pencil to capture shadow and light in these simple scenes.

These women are set in ephemeral moments, picking apples, gathering herbs, tucking a blouse into worn-in denim, or relaxing in the dapples of tea that lend these works the illusion of a sunlit autumn evening. My figures have an air of vintage simplicity to them. Dressed in puff sleeves, billowing skirts, and scarves that adorn crowns of long natural hair. I've combined my life-long love of vintage collecting here, referencing pieces in my wardrobe for drape, pattern, and texture.

The process for creating the nude figures involves more movement than the other drawings. The paper fibers have been stained with herbals, but this time, I've used ponderosa pine needles and the smooth edge of an obsidian chunk to swirl ink and wildfire charcoal to mark the page intuitively. In the space between obsidian scraped and pine-scratched ink, I sketch nude landscapes depicting the undulating and imperfect perfection of the body. The smudges and streaks frame the drawings to give a moody, natural, and tangled look to these levitating figures.

These drawings bring me a meditative pause from my other artworks. They are a golden hour-gossamer-nostalgia-daydream-love letter from me to you.

See more from this series on my website:
tianatraffasart.bigcartel.com

Auric Forms (Sapphic)

This series of works explores the intersections of sensuality, orgasm, feminism, and the body. How can I make figurative works outside of the parameters of the male gaze, explore female sexuality free from the constraints of patriarchy and Christan indoctrination? My interest in the feminine archetype informs this work. Women in art are depicted as the exploitable maiden, the sexy Venus who exists to be looked upon, the compliant mother who gives up her own identity to raise another, the monster who defies convention and is feared for it. Figurative work often defaults to the maiden/Venus archetype. It is consumable and for male sexual gratification. But often, depictions of women owning their sexual power, their bodies, their experience, those images are censored and devalued. I am much more interested in depicting women as they are: complex, fleshed out, whole. These are the beginning steps of knitting together the female nude in a web of milk, moonblood, and yoni nectar, finding the magic in shedding what doesn't work and uncovering what feels authentic. I hope these inspire you to find comfort in your devouring, orgasmic, animalistic, monster of a body.

See more of this series at my website:
tianatraffasart.bigcartel.com

Arcana Ma

My mixed media series called Arcana Ma is deeply personal yet it taps into collective experience that most mothers and caretakers hold. Arcana meaning mysteries and Ma as in mother: Mysteries of Motherhood. This series addresses the complex nature of the mother-child relationship and my personal struggles with motherhood as an institution within a patriarchal society. While it highlights emotional taboos, it also features the joyous emotional highs that come with being someone's mama.

See more from this series:
tianatraffasart.bigcartel.com

New Mythologies Street Art

I create images in the form of paste-up drawings installed in my neighborhood depicting imagery drawn from dreams, symbolism, ancient neolithic goddess cultures, ritual, ancestral myths, and motherhood. These are a series of wheatpaste drawings where myths come to life and women are depicted as healers, magic weavers, and goddesses. It is in the street where women often feel unsafe- where catcalls and misogynistic advertising hang in the air. Long ago, in the ancient matriarchal Neolithic goddess cultures, depictions of sacred women, women who held powerful roles, and great goddesses were painted or carved onto buildings, holy sites, and an integral part of the mundane every day. My street art project momentarily disrupts the viewer's normal landscape where they are met with images of herbs, animal familiars, symbols, and the magic of blood, life-giving birth, and personal power. This work is important to me and I spend time with the imagery, weaving together personal talismans and collective symbolism to spiritualize the piece and engage in meditative labor. Once they are pasted up, they are no longer mine. They are at the mercy of location and weather. Human interaction plays a large role in the art's life; torn off, written over, photographed, and posted on social media, it is ephemeral, fleeting, forgotten...much like the empowered imagery of the ancients.

See more at:
tianatraffasart.bigcartel.com