Muscle Memory Opens at Leon Gallery | Denver Colorado | Solo Exhibition

The stage is set, and the installation is officially open. But in a sense, the real work is just beginning. Throughout the next 8 weeks, Tya Alisa Anthony invites you, the Denver community, to engage with her, one on one, in conversations about the issues that we face, both personally and collectively. Information about your conversations that you are willing to share with the larger community will be documented and compiled in an ongoing research based project that is rooted in the concept of communing in a safe and sacred space. To participate in this compelling project and contribute your own voice to the conversation, secure your appointment on our website. -Leon Gallery

Tya Alisa Anthony

Tya Alisa Anthony is an American artist, photographer, writer, and independent curator whose work explores memory, mythology, ancestry, and the quiet ways people leave themselves behind in the objects they touch. For more than twenty years, her practice has existed at the intersection of visual research, education, and cultural storytelling, investigating resilience through the body, the landscape, historical archives, and the natural world.

Working across photography, collage, cyanotype, botanical collections, handmade books, and mixed media, Anthony approaches each body of work as an evolving archive rather than a finished statement. She is drawn to weathered photographs, heirlooms, medicinal plants, folklore, ritual objects, forgotten architecture, and the symbolic language that connects cultures across time. Her work asks how identity is preserved, transformed, and remembered.

Alongside her studio practice, Anthony has spent more than two decades building educational programs, exhibitions, and community-centered initiatives that expand access to the arts. Her leadership has helped shape institutions, mentor emerging artists, develop sustainable systems, and create spaces where creativity becomes a lifelong practice rather than a privilege.

Anthony’s artwork is included in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver’s Octopus Collection. Her work has been exhibited nationally and is held in numerous private collections.

She is currently creating Organic Tarot, a 78-card hand-collaged tarot deck and accompanying memoir that intertwines mythology, autobiography, botanical symbolism, and the archetypal journey of transformation. The project reflects the central thread running throughout her career: that art is not simply something we make—it is a way of understanding ourselves, preserving what matters, and leaving a map for those who come after us.

http://www.tyaanthony.com
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New Paintings | Muscle Memory

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Pink Progression | In Skin