Tanya Momii
California, USAI am my mothers daughter
Acrylic
I am my mother’s daughter is a story of a brilliant young lady named Shyamala Gopalan. She came from india to study at University of Berkeley. Shyamala was a Biomedical Scientist. She met a young man from Jamaica at University of Berkeley. They got married and had two daughters Kamala and Maya. Shyamala didn’t stay married and raised two girls single handedly. Two daughters names are Kamala Devi Harris Vice President of the United States and Maya Harris lawyer political commentator. Shyamala’s advise to her two daughters was “well, you may be the first to do many things- make sure you’re not the last.” These two daughters are making a mark in this world. This beautiful mother wishes good luck to her daughters forever.
“To evoke in oneself a feeling one has experienced, and…then, by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling—this is the activity of art.” is how Leo Tolstoy defines art. This perfectly encapsulates my process when it comes to art. I take my experiences and personal struggles and translate it onto the empty canvas.
One of the most important aspects of my work is to empower women. I observe and paint human behavior on the canvas. I want women to regain their strength, power and confidence. And I want women to band together and unite themselves. I use mediums of acrylics and oils in order to convey my powerful messages as they allow me to paint bold stories with my self expression.
I was originally trained to paint with oils when I was studying for my Bachelors. I like its layering techniques and thickness as well as its blend ability. As some of my paintings fall into the category of realism and social realism, I have come to find that realism is better depicted using oils. You can create a lot of texture using oils and that helps when it comes to realism because life can be captured through texture. I learnt and adapted to paint with acrylics in 2007. Since I was painting about a 100 paintings per year, I started to gravitate more towards acrylic as it allows me to be able to store my many paintings. One of my favorite colors when it comes time to populate my canvas is burnt umber. I really like to start building my canvas with burnt umber. It transforms from light to dark quite easily , My brush automatically gravitates towards burnt umber. I like to start my work with rag technique, add the brush strokes and then I start adding colors. I am crazy about painting large canvases. I paint on 6 yard long canvases. My messages are so big that even 6 yard long canvases are too small for me.
This painting is a story of a single mother raising Hero.
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