Trena Mcnabb

Trena McNabb creates intricate and layered paintings she has researched with the ardor and interest of a natural scientist. Although each subject is represented realistically, because she employs transparency, overlap, and changes in scale, the overall effect of the piece is somewhat surreal. Often described as “transparent, painted collages, a connected series of smaller paintings that tell a story.

Her artistic resume is extensive, spanning over three decades and including a host of community projects as well as over 45 selected exhibitions. Trena’s painting style has been described as a transparent, painted collage—forming a kaleidoscope of vivid colors that still retain a lifelike quality. The overlapping images she creates around one central theme combine to tell a story, and draw the viewer in with surreal and colorful forms which become shockingly realistic when viewed up close.

Trena has always enjoy painting big and these commissions gave her an opportunity. She likes doing research and telling a story using her own unique technique. Her prior work ranges from 32-foot long multi-canvas, site-specific corporate, hospitals and/or public art commissions to small pieces for private residences. Her paintings can be found thro...

Trena considers herself self-taught. She was a successful commercial designer for many years and painted on the side. As her unique technique of transparent overlapping images became well known, she left the corporate world to paint full-time.

The technique is her own invention and has evolved over time and with experimentation. She first fell in love with the canvas contrasted with pure white Gesso paint. Then began contrasting that with colorful images. It has been called “kin to collage” with each image painted one over the other to create a blend of science, realism and imagination. The space between the edges of images become “window scenes” sometimes filled with a single color, landscape or individual image, everything fitting together like a puzzle.

As her reputation grew she was offered corporate and public art commissions spanning entire walls and floors. She would break the pieces up and created multi-sectioned works that used geometric shapes of canvas to add interest to the overall design. Sometimes she adds plexiglass to enhance the overlapping image with a 3D affect.

Selected Commissions:

Piedmont Land Conservancy; 2 exterior, wildflower panels for the Emily Allen Wildflower Garden: 30” circle & 36” x 48” oval; Winston-Salem, NC 2022

Red Oak Brewery; 4 locations: Office; Lager Haus; Wursthaus; Exterior Biergarten; Whitsett, NC 2021- 2022

Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, Birthing Center; 3 panels, each 36”x30”, 2” apart; Plus 4 other paintings; Winston-Salem, NC; 2019

Dayton Children’s Hospital; High resolution photo prints (23”x46”) (30”x51”) Dayton, OH; 2019

ArtPop Street Gallery; One of five winners in the ArtPop competition, which provides rotating two-dimensional public art rotating for one year on five billboards in 12 counties. 2019

Wake Forest Baptist Hospital, Birthing Center; 3 panels, each 36”x30”, 2” apart; plus 4 individual paintings, Winston-Salem, NC; 2019

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital; 2 paintings for treatment rooms (19”x120” & 19”x145”) Palo Alto, CA; 2018 & 2019

Wake Forest Medical Center; Wall art recognizing Organ Donors (Winston-Salem, NC) 2019

Dayton Children’s Hospital; High resolution file for Photo prints; 2019

Clean Air Carolina (Charlotte, Chapel Hill, NC) 2017

Red Oak Brewery (Whitsett, NC) 2017

Salemtown Retirement Community (Winston-Salem, NC) 2005 &...