Tse Tsan: Santa Clara Surrealism for a New Century
By Chadd Scott on
Standing out at Santa Fe Indian Market takes some real doing. Here, 1,000 of the best artists in the world converge with their best work. Not 1,000 of the best Native artists, 1,000 of the best artists who happen to be Native.
On view and for sale are a dizzying assortment of paintings, photography, jewelry, pottery, and objects of creativity and handicraft defying belief. An art lover could go to Indian Market with an 18-wheeler to fill and $1 million to spend and still be forced to make choices.
Necrosis turned my head during the event’s Best of Show preview held each Friday before the main event. It stood out among the best of the best. I wasn’t alone in that opinion. The picture had a blue ribbon for excellence in its group – paintings, drawings, graphics, and photography – and an orange ribbon signifying Best of Division: computer generated graphics.
Here was something wholly original. Death and decay made gorgeous. Surrealism synchronized with Indigeneity. Native and Southwestern in a bracingly original fashion.
The image possessed all the macabre vibes and unreality of Surrealism, which I love, along with the desert imagery, which I also adore. Turkey vultures. Cactus. A canyon. A backdrop of pueblo pottery design
The artist: Tse Tsan (Santa Clara Pueblo).
Never heard of her, or him, or them.
Tse Tsan holds up her digital illustration 'Necrosis' inside her booth at SWAIA Indian Market 2024
A Great Artist with a Great Story
A sprinkle of magic often brings artworks and collectors together. Call it synchronicity. Time and place. Destiney. Whatever you will.
Excitedly stepping out of Hotel Chimayo across Washington Avenue from the Palace of Governors Saturday morning anticipating a big day of browsing, who should I find 10 booths to the left of the front door, but Tse Tsan with Necrosis. Fairy dust.
Five minutes into what would be the first of two five-hour days looking at art I had found the artist and artwork that would most stick to my ribs.
Tse Tsan’s booth was facing east, and the artist was squinting hard against an already glaring sun. I introduced myself and told her how much Necrosis had captivated me during Best of Show. After a little chit-chat, I apologized in advance for asking how old she was. To me, nearly 50, she looked 18. I’m at that age now where anyone under 30 looks like a kid.
Twenty-four was her response. And this was her first Indian Market.
Now, the art lover gave way to the writer. I had found more than a great artwork, I had found a great story.
“I didn’t think it was mine at first,” Tse Tsan, who was born in Santa Fe and grew up on the Santa Clara Pueblo reservation, told me when retrieving her artwork from Best of Show and seeing it adorned with two ribbons.
The validation was just the confirmation she needed.
“I was laid off from my tech job at the beginning of this year and spent a couple of months trying to find a job, but wasn’t getting hired anywhere and decided to do art full time,” she explained. “I took a risk (and) poured the last of my savings into getting my inventory.”
Have I mentioned how good of a story this is?
Tse Tsan was working as a software engineer in user experience and user interface.
“Art was always my passion, but I wasn’t in a position where I could fully dedicate myself to it,” she said.
Tse Tsan is not impulsive. The artist has a practical side to go along with the creative. In 2023, she graduated Summa Cum Laude from Southern New Hampshire University with a bachelor’s in business administration.
“I’m a pretty self-sufficient person. I’m an artist, but I also have a mortgage. I bought my first house at 23. I wanted to have financial stability,” she explains of her desire to pursue a business degree. “It helps with the marketing aspect. I was able to set up my LLC, get the tax thing figured out. Basic business knowledge helps.”
It sure does, and many – I dare say most – of the artists I meet struggle mightily with that side of the career.
The ribbons and sales from Tse Tsan’s first Indian Market were a relief, peace of mind knowing she had made the right decision in leaving tech for art.
Tse Tsan, 'Necrosis.' Courtesy of the artist.
New Art for a New Age
Tse Tsan’s digital illustrations are created in Adobe Photoshop with a Wacom tablet and printed on archival photo paper. In layman’s terms, she’s drawing on a computer.
“A lot of people when they initially see it, they really like it, and then when they learn it’s a digital medium, I see they’re kind of hesitant,” Tse Tsan said. “Maybe their impression of its value changes. It can take a little bit of convincing.”
The artist might as well have been talking about me. I’m not a fan of most digital art. I like paint and stone and wood and material objects. I like to see the hand of the artist in their artwork. Digital art doesn’t typically allow for that. It feels “thin” to me; inconsequential. I find the makers generally more focused on the tech than the artistry, the imagery, or the storytelling.
Not here. Not with Necrosis and Tse Tsan’s other illustrations.
This is more David Hockney drawing on an iPad than sophomoric, first-generation NFTs.
“In the era of (artificial intelligence) and AI art, I can see how even the word ‘digital’ can give customers a little bit of hesitation,” she added.
No prompt into a large language model supercomputer using billions of data sets and machine learning could produce what Tse Tsan does. Her line. Her imagination. The colors. This isn’t “computer art,” this is high-end printmaking in the tradition of Dürer or Rembrandt or whoever else you want to name adapted to the 21st century.
Each of her images is hand illustrated taking months to complete. Printed editions range from 10 to 15.
Tse Tsan with her digital illustrations at SWAIA Indian Market 2024.
Surrealism Celebrates Centennial
Surrealism celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2024. The movement formed in response to a rapidly modernizing world. Too rapid for most people to wrap their heads around. Horses as transportation were giving way to planes. Psychoanalysis. Dream interpretation.
Surrealism especially took hold during the 30s and 40s as a response to a world gone mad with World War II. No artistic language based in reality could communicate the unreality being experienced. This was not a rational world, and rational art couldn’t capture it.
Salvador Dalí with his dripping clocks is of course the artist most associated with the movement. I’ve never been a fan of his. Max Ernst and André Breton are more my style. But when it comes to Surrealism, it’s the mid-century female artist’s I’m most intrigued by. Leonora Carrington. Leonor Fini. Dorothea Tanning.
Tse Tsan follows in their footsteps. Her work has that much potential.
She was introduced to Surrealism in classes at the New Mexico School for the Arts, a charter high school in Santa Fe, from which she graduated in 2018.
She also follows in the footsteps – amazingly – literally and figuratively, of another icon. Another of the artists I most admire: Pablita Velarde (1918– 2006; Santa Clara Pueblo). Velarde is Tse Tsan’s great-great aunt on her mother’s side.
This story just keeps getting better!
In fact, Tse Tsan (Maya Peña) shares her Pueblo name with Velarde, the legendary “flat style” painter who studied under Dorothy Dunn at the Santa Fe Indian School. Tse Tsan translates to “Golden Dawn” in Tewa.
Interestingly, both work in two dimensions despite their community’s legendary pottery tradition. Peña admits to having received resistance in pursuing her ultra-contemporary medium as a Santa Clara artist. The result was something of an identity crisis. She initially resisted categorization as a “Native” artist.
“When I was younger, I had the impression Indigenous art had to be a certain thing; it had to be pottery or jewelry,” Peña explained. “I was boxing myself in when there wasn’t a box. That came with maturing as an artist, realizing I have the freedom to not do that if I don’t want.”
Perusing the booths of Indian Market in 2024 made that more apparent than ever. Visitors still found loads of jewelry and pottery – the best in the world – but there was more photography than ever. Ready to wear fashion. I saw a Caddo ceramic BB-9 droid reproduction from “Star Wars.”
Nothing, however, more fascinating than a 24-year-old’s surrealist digital illustrations.
