In collection at the Denver Art Museum, the King of Cups.

Funding for object education resources provided by a grant from the Morgridge Family Foundation. Additional funding provided by the William Randolph Hearst Endowment for Education Programs, and Xcel Energy Foundation. We thank our colleagues at the University of Denver Morgridge College of Education.

The images on this page are intended for classroom use only and may not be reproduced for other reasons without the permission of the Denver Art Museum. This object may not currently be on display at the museum.

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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Genesis of Time | Grounding Energies | Foremother Series explored