Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library | Black History in the Making

Written By Tya Alisa Anthony

What: Group exhibition
Where: Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library - 2401 Welton St. Denver, CO, 80205
When: February 5 - March 2, 2024
Opening Reception: February 20, 5-7pm 

About the exhibition: Join us for a reception honoring the Colorado artists featured in our Black History Month Art Exhibition, on display for the entire month of February! Enjoy light refreshments and music while you view the artwork, meet the artists, and learn about their creative styles.

About the artist: Tya Alisa Anthony explores themes of identity through photography, mined media and charged objects. Anthony’s Identity focused works offer exploration in both the shared and diverse experiences of Contemporary Western Culture.

While approaching socially illuminated topics involving people of color, the core of Anthony's experimental work exists within research, collage and abstraction. As an integral component of her tactile studio practice, Anthony draws from photographs acquired online and removed from her extensive archive of family photographs.

Contact: tya.anthony@gmail.com
Artist website: www.tyaanthony.com 
Instagram: @tyaanthony

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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