Tia Collection is pleased to announce the completion of the mural Generous by Santa Clara artist Eliza Naranjo Morse. Eliza’s creation is the second installment of the Tia x Chatter Mural Project, which presents temporary murals by contemporary BIPOC women artists who activate space and community.
Generous is made around themes of sharing and acceptance, and the joy of feeling connected to another. I am inspired to illustrate these kinds of enormously significant, often understated life moments that have balanced and strengthened me. I treasure these moments with other people, animals and the natural world where I feel comfortable and connected. I hope viewers will feel the easiness and care expressed in the loose style of the mural, and find themselves reminded of their own experiences of generative connection and comfort with another. Having painted anthropomorphic animals who are traveling for years now, I am interested in exploring what makes up their journeys; what they are witnessing, experiencing and where they are going.
Generous is the second commissioned mural as part of the Tia x Chatter Mural Project, following the inaugural mural of This Land / This Body by Diné (Navajo) and Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) artist Heidi Brandow. “I can feel the lines of Heidi’s mural as I draw on the white wall,” Eliza said of the experience following longtime friend and peer Brandow. “The process becomes not only a personal effort but a continual recalling of the intention of her expression. When I make work on a wall, I’m aware that they may have held space for many creative expressions. To do this following someone that I have known so deeply brings our families, personal and ancestral histories, world views and efforts into a larger creative flow. Heidi and I met at the Native American Preparatory school at 14 years old and now, decades later, we see the fruition of the support we have experienced, and of our own creative perseverance. I hope this Tia initiative is an encouragement for creative spaces to support as many artists as possible in grand ways. I think now is an especially important time for supporting big expressions as they encourage us to dream and go forward with a greater sense of what is possible in both formal creative expressions and inspired, community-conscious efforts.”
Eliza Naranjo Morse, Kha’p’o Owingeh (Pueblo of Santa Clara), is a mixed-media artist whose work engages drawing, land, collaboration, sculpture and writing, and explores the existential questions that arise from current events, personal experiences, and spiritual seeking. Her art, in materials as varied as gathered earth, acrylic paint, digital media and community knowledge from her Pueblo elders and her formal education, reflects on cultural history, spirituality and contemporary existence. With a focus on land, current events and personal and communal experience, she gathers and creates stories that call attention to both the beautiful and challenging nature of existence. In addition to the ongoing education she receives from her extended family, Eliza holds a Bachelor Degree in Art from Skidmore College, NY. She has participated in creative activity regionally, nationally and internationally for more than 20 years. Her efforts are centered around community relationships as well as cultural care. Her work has been featured in such institutions as The Center for Indigenous Arts, Veracruz, Mexico; SITE Santa Fe, NM; and IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM. In 2007, she was awarded the Rollin and Mary Ella King Native Artist Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, NM. In 2021, she was awarded the Fellowship for Native American Visual Artists at Ucross, WY. In 2024, the New Mexico chapter of the National Museum for Women in the Arts selected Eliza to participate in the exhibition New Worlds: Women to Watch 2024 at their newly renovated museum. Eliza created the mural A Return to Relationship which shows a powerful moment of gathering.
About Tia x Chatter Mural Project: Tia Collection, a global art collection with a mission to support artists and institutions through its acquisitions and lending programs, has partnered with non-profit musical ensemble Chatter. The Tia x Chatter Mural Project presents temporary murals by contemporary women artists who activate space and community. In addition to the Tia x Chatter Mural Project, Tia Collection provides a backdrop of loaned artworks from the collection for Chatter’s Santa Fe programming. Exhibitions are curated by Tia staff on a bi-monthly,