Tehya Shea is an interdisciplinary artist with deep roots in the foothills of Northern California.
Drawn to nature’s textures, her early practice was shaped by formative years spent across the American West. These landscapes instilled a pioneer spirit, a devotion to searching, gathering, and making from what is at hand. In recent work, this restless inquiry is paired with a sense of return, both literal and metaphorical, to the rugged coastlines of Maine, where her ancestors settled centuries ago.
This through-line emerges in layered, textural landscapes that weave together memory, instinct, and lived experience. Tehya embraces the wild and untamed, allowing imperfection to remain visible and essential. The scattered, found, and overlooked are brought into quiet relationship, forming cohesive works that not only honor but require the inherent flaws of their individual parts. With this balance of mess and delicacy, imperfection is not corrected, but is celebrated as integral to the whole.
Tehya's history reflects a deep connection to the natural world, mysticism and magic.
She gets a kick out of her early childhood pictures, in which she and her parents are dressed all in red and camping on lands between Northern California and the Rajaneesh commune in Oregon. She still has a weakness for the feel of burnt red velvet in her fingers.
Tehya lives and works on the coast of Maine.