Felicia Tafoya

Instagram: @sheshaa_shesh

Felicia Tafoya is a ceramics sculptor and painter born in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is currently attending the University of New Mexico to earn her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and will be graduating in December 2020. Most of her artwork consists of small and large scale sculptures with pre-mixed and originally mixed glazes. In the area of painting she works medium to large scale and uses oil and acrylic, but acrylic as her primarily painting medium.

Her ceramic sculptures are sometimes functional but mostly created for decorative purposes only. Her passion for ceramics began in 2014 during her sophomore year in high school, and she has been working with this medium since. Most of her work is very detailed either with the glazes she uses or the designs engraved into the work. She received an award for largest ceramic piece entered by a high school student back in 2016, and with the same piece sold it in the A is for Art show. In her most recent work she gets her inspiration from Ellen Dissanayake. She looks at art through a perspective of what it was intended to be used for, in order to understand what we use it for today and how it has changed.

When looking at art from back then she says it was all functional, it had a specific purpose, whether it was for ceremonies, dance, marriage rituals or barials. People made art for the purpose of it being used for something, not just something thanks hangs on the wall. Felicia got her inspiration from artists and the appreciation she has of nature and the human body. She combines these subjects to give them more meaning. She paints with acrylic on canvas, inspired by her emotions and feelings. Her latest series has 3 paintings called broken, the first one is a painting of a turso that has the chest opened up as if it was in heart surgery, with pins holding the flesh and ribs covered in blood. There is a heart in the right hand corner with little gears turning it, the skin has these fne chips and cracks that show the person’s pain and trauma.

In the background it is a metallic black with gears that give the painting more movement. The second painting is a hand with blue nails squeezing a red heart, there is blood running down the arm. The blue nails complement the red heart because there are hints of blue in the veins of the heart. The background is black and is very minimal. The third painting is a heart directly in the center of the canvas, the veins are red and blue and have so much detail. At the edge of the right side of the heart there are little tiny pieces falling off and eventually turning into butterflies. On the left side of the heart there are two incisions that are physically sewn back together with red and black thread. She plans on furthering her skills and experience through personal work and to enter into more shows. This will help her build a platform to showcase her work and learn her life as an artist after college.