"Jealous Pig" Painting

Hi, I’m Tanya — an artist living and creating in the United States. Originally trained as a history teacher, I chose instead to make my own history through art. My work explores the intense emotional spectrum of living with bipolar disorder — the swing between light and dark, tenderness and fury, beauty and distortion. Painting, for me, is not just about the final image. It’s a way to release what can’t be said — a surge of raw emotion made visible. I mainly work in mixed media, using oil and acrylic paint, often layering unexpected materials like paper, foil, glue — even pizza boxes — to give my pieces texture and unpredictability. My goal is to create work that feels like it might bite back.