The Art of Tenaya Sims

Tenaya. Who?

You can't find much about him online, unless it pertains to his teaching at The  Georgetown Atelier in Seattle, a school he founded about seven years ago, tucked away in the corner of an old brick brewery building. No website, very little social media presence, very little press. So how on earth did I find this guy with the weird name? Glad you asked!

Let's hop in the DeLorean and time travel to 2007, where I am scoping out a potential studio space on the second floor of a historic building in the odd and wonderful neighborhood of Georgetown in south Seattle. As I'm looking at a space in the collective known as Georgetown Art Center, one of the studio doors pops open and this young, swaggering1 guy steps out. The GAC director introduces me to one of her art tenants, Tenaya Sims. "Go check out his work," she waves me into his space, "it's breathtaking". I walk in and am met with oil paintings of such pristine quality, I can't believe this guy actually painted them. He explains he recently graduated from the Juliette Aristides atelier, and I'm doubly impressed. After all, she literally wrote the books on atelier drawing and painting. I realized at that moment that this was the place I needed to be; all the art in this space was fantastically good, and I needed to be surrounded by really good works.

"Thistle", oil on canvas. I got to know Tenaya at about this time.

Not too long after that, Tenaya asked me if I'd consider modeling for a painting he was working on. It wasn't a nude gig so I agreed, and it was about this time we started to interact a little more than just saying hello. He was in his late 20s at the time, and a very confident realist painter, although he was still exploring the direction he wanted to go with his work. He was working as a part-time instructor at the Fall City Arts studio, something that he expanded into the Georgetown Atelier  a couple years later, taught by Tenaya other graduates from his full time program. He truly believed anyone with the will to study could learn classical technique in drawing and painting, and I wound up taking lessons from Tenaya, as I knew my own technique needed some updating.

"Maquette", oil on linen on board. I also modeled for this one, and actually worked on the painting while he was out of the country (he was putting it into the A/NT Gallery "Pain" show of 2014 but couldn't finish on time). Its signed by the both of us.

Soon after, he and I became friends. We have a funny friendship: we're both incredibly stubborn, so arguments, often heated, erupt on a regular basis. But like a tropical storm, it blows over quickly and within just a few minutes we'll interact as if nothing happened. Sometimes his playful natures extends into extreme pestering, in which case my bossy, older-sister side responds (think Linus and Lucy van Pelt). We both like to be right, but when it comes to painting and drawing, he most definitely knows what he's talking about, and I'll defer to him. The results in my current painting process speaks to this.

"The Birth of Venus", oil on linen. It's over 8 feet in width and took over a year to paint.

Okay, we'll hop back into the DeLorean and its 2015. Tenaya had been working out all the kinks in his first major oversized piece, The Birth of Venus, and began working on his next one, the current Semillas. I had just gotten back from Spectrum Fantastic Art Live in Kansas City, and I met up with Tenaya for coffee. I was gushing about how awesome the trip was and all the amazing people I met, and talked about the kinds of shows I wanted to book. Tenaya asked me if he could show with me; I was taken aback, mostly because Tenaya has always been a realist painter and I am hardly the typical classical establishment.  He quickly reminded me of his years working in the video game industry storyboarding and concepting, followed by a BFA at Carnegie Mellon (including working with Randy Pausch) before training under Jeff Watts and Juliette. Okay, okay, point taken!! I made him swear that he would be able to complete a body of work in time - he swore he would - and if so, he had a year to prepare.

"The Birth of Venus", detail

When Tenaya works on a major piece, regardless of size, he makes many many little studies, whether from a live model, photographic reference or a combination of the two. From these, he'll work on his values, creating several monochromatic drawings and paintings to gauge just the right set of values and tones for his work. He'll hunt out additional resource images -- a tree, a cloud, the ocean -- and with all these he starts to build up his composition, usually in Photoshop, first seaming together photographic reference, then digitally painting the composition,  working out color, temperature, and layout. He'll paint several color studies, working back and forth digitally to traditionally. From all of this, he'll then start on the actual painting process, which is quite academic in nature. All said, for his oversized works the process can take up to a year on a given painting, but the result is worth every minute.

Once Tenaya worked out the composition on a smaller scale, he could then tackle the final canvas

Women are predominant subjects for him; classically, the female figure, especially the nude, represents all that is beautiful. Tenaya takes particular influence from his ancestral Italy, with artists such as Caravaggio, Michelangelo and Botticelli fueling his imagination. He is also a great admirer of later artists, such as the Victorian painters Waterhouse and Bouguereau, whose sublime skintones move even the smallest of hearts. To render the female figure to her greatest attributes (which goes beyond her physical features) is the goal of all classically trained artists. She is powerful, serene, motherly, earth-shattering, impish, sexy, a goddess.  The nude, as opposed to a clothed model, is timeless; she is neither ancient nor contemporary.

William Bouguereau, "The Birth of Venus", 1879. Venus' skin reflects the pearlescence of the oyster shell. Bougureau defined English beauty during his lifetime.

 Working with Indo-European mythical themes, Tenaya's newest works reflect the various divine roles that women have played. With "Venus", its quite apparent; up rises Venus in the half shell, however, she is dark skinned, more somber. Below her in the foam are seemingly lifeless women; this new Venus replaces older and outdated definitions of what is beautiful and desirable. In "Semillas" (meaning "seed" in Spanish), Tenaya works with the power of the great goddess Kali, who is in a midpoint fall (or perhaps rise?). Hot, slag-like fiery sparks fall from the sky, each contained a tiny, perfect figure in a fetal position. She represents the destruction and rebirth that Kali is revered for, in dramatic, epic form.

"Semillas", oil and 23k gold leaf on panel. This piece is 72 x 101".

"Semillas", detail

Tenaya made the attempt to finish a third oversized painting, having to stop prior to completion due to the constraints of time. We are displaying it anyway, giving the visitor a rare peek at a painting in mid-process. As-yet unnamed, this third painting depicts a woman fighting an anthropomorphic lion, their manes flowing into one another and terminating into a tail of feathers. Does the lion represent the Nemean lion of Greek mythology, defeated by Hercules and eventually becoming the constellation Leo? I'm not really sure, but it does a respectful nod to Rubens' rendition of this mythic battle..

Working on the as-yet unnamed oversized painting

Peter Paul Rubens, "Hercules Strangling the Nemean Lion", 1639.

Tenaya has several smaller works, such as the modestly sized "Linea" (55 x 38.5") or the portrait "Huyen", and all of them are exquisite. I don't believe Tenaya is done with big paintings, though. In fact, I think they're going to get bigger, grander.

"Linea", oil on linen mounted on panel.

 

"Huyen", oil on linen mounted on panel.

You can tell he enjoys the process of working in larger scale. The brush strokes are a little looser as the size grows but no less mindful and exacting. To see his newest pieces is an experience; we've deliberately opened up the gallery floor to allow the visitor to step back at least fifteen feet and drink in the work.  Its very powerful, and I've had more than one visitor come back to the gallery with friends in tow, standing back to enjoy the looks their friends make when addressing these paintings.

Krab Jab Studio makes use of open space

He definitely rolled up his sleeves and went to work this last year, and his solo show of thirteen drawings and paintings is tight, beautifully painted, and exciting, which is the last adjective you'd consider for a realist painter of classical bend. He's taking on narratives, crossing that bridge between conservative realism to imaginative realism, a journey of which he's an enthusiastic participant. As his friend, I'm excited for him, and as his curator, I'm quite pleased.

So why isn't there a website for him, or much of an online presence? He doesn't like to think about those things; he finds the internet to be highly distracting, and if it weren't for his school's site, he would do without the web, with the exception of TED Talks, visual research or streaming radio. Getting him to do anything beyond teaching, eating or painting is sometimes a futile task (he will, however, take you up on a game of squash if asked).
~ Julie Baroh, June 2016

"The Art of Tenaya Sims" runs through July 2nd at Krab Jab Studio. For sales inquiries please contact Natalia Fedoruk.

Studio Visit with Tenaya Sims

It's not often I get to stop in to visit an artist while they're working on a show for me, so I took up the offer to come by and take photos of Tenaya Sims while he worked on one of his oversized paintings.

"Lysandra", oil and gold leaf

Tenaya is both an old hat and a rising talent. Inspired by his time with Jeff Watts (it seems that all of Jeff's young students move on to big careers!), Tenaya packed up his car and traveled from California to Washington to train under Juliette Aristides in her newly established atelier at Gage Academy. He quickly became a protege of hers - he even has examples of his work in her Drawing Atelier book - and soon after graduating her atelier, he struck out on his own and built up his successful school, the Georgetown Atelier, which takes up most of his time. The fact that he's been able to work on his monumental paintings, run workshops, AND teach classical drawing and painting is pretty amazing, but he's lamented that all this activity caused his pursuit with gallery work to come to a virtual standstill.

In his studio

I totally get it. Being an artist myself, I have to sacrifice my painting and drawing to keep running the gallery. When I get home, after I feed dogs, feed myself, interact with the husband, walk dogs, clean up some kind of doggie mess, go through mail, check messages...honestly I have little energy left to do my creative work. I'm spent, and as I grow older, I have less of that spontaneous up-all-night-painting energy I had when I was younger. Tenaya is younger and far more energetic, but he's also very devoted to his students and their education in the arts and willingly sacrifices his time to ensure they get good training. The resulting effect is twofold: his students are out-of-the-box engaged in their professional pursuits (many have proven solid in the art world), but he hasn't had a show in nearly ten years.

"Maquette", oil on panel

That's about to change for him.  He's actually shown with us a couple of times (his "Maquette" painting was part of our 2014 Pain show) and received a really positive response, but this show is a landmark solo show and he's put everything out there for it. He wants to prove that he's more than a good instructor, that he's more than just "talented" or skilled as a realist painter. He wants to prove he's more than just a realist painter, that he also has that genius qualifier called "vision". It's not just that his paintings are big and grand, that he can render out a beautiful figure, that he fully understands the science of composition; there are lots of painters out there that can do the same. In this show, he examines his own relationship with the feminine through the mythological looking glass, opening himself up in the process. The results are beautiful, and in some ways very raw and vulnerable.

Working on his newest painting. The painting transfer is at the left.

These are dangerous times for artists with vision. With public shaming at an all-time high and a make-it-or-break-it attitude of the general populous, it can be a career-killer for an artist to express themselves to society in an honest and authentic way. Being a male artist, and expressing oneself using the nude female figure in context, is even more daunting. Many realist painters go the safe route: they do figure studies in classical style, avoiding as much connotation as possible. Tenaya can whip those puppies out in a heartbeat, mostly because its a technical drawing from a live nude model, and he works alongside his students on a regular basis. While you can clearly see he enjoys the process and addresses the figure with respect and love, it's not his vision, just an exercise.

Working from reference, Tenaya makes his first pass on the painting of a lion-man

You can really feel his love for the craft in his work, but even more so, you can feel a deep love for the female figure. He really connects the viewer to the subject and it would be slightly uncomfortable result were it not for his incredible talent with the brush. He works very gingerly, mindfully, and engaged, each brush stroke thoughtfully applied. His figures are rendered with strength and while sexually alluring, they are not just bodies placed in space for decorative effect or titillation. He's telling their story and does it well, and he knows he could be scrutinized over it, especially by a female audience. He and I have talked about that many times over the years, about him walking that fine line. My advice is always to do what you love, the love will shine through. Sure, someone might toss the "objectifying the female" comment out there, but good art transcends, and folks, this is good art.

"Semillas", in the studio

"Semillas", oil on panel

I'm honored that he let me stop by and take pictures, that he lets me in to his thoughts on his work. I hope I can make this a habit with more artists in the future!

Poppy the cat approves

Tenaya will be showing his new paintings at Krab Jab Studio in June 2016, and will be lecturing on his process at a ticketed artist talk/reception June 10th (our website/social media will roll out more info on that in the next week).

~Julie