Painter Tina Roy’s wanderlust has taken her globetrotting, but her home, heart and primary muse is the desert – and the life and death she finds within it.
“I think there’s a very special energy about [it],” the Scottsdale native says. “I find it a very magical place because it is so harsh. Something that I’ve always thought about was this juxtaposition of the beauty of the desert, but then also the harshness of the desert.”
Painted with oils, Roy’s final works have a “stylized realism,” with thin layers of paint and crisp brush strokes – something she blames on studying the Dutch masters while pursuing a dual degree in fine art and art history at The American University of Paris. Working with oils, she feels “instant gratification.”
“Even though oil takes time, [covering] huge areas with paint is really fun for me,” she says. “I get very excited about an idea, and then it’s just a race to keep up with that.”
During a visit to see her aunt in London at age 13, Roy was enrolled in a painting and drawing class while her aunt worked. The experience ignited her interest in becoming an artist.
“That was quite formative,” Roy says. “I really learned a lot, progressed a lot and felt encouraged to confidently say, ‘This is what I’m doing.’”
She continued to create, but made a decision about two years ago to pursue art in earnest, quitting her day job at a fine art auction house. She moved her studio to Cattle Track Arts Compound in Scottsdale in September.
“It’s really been happening very fast ever since I made that conscious decision that there is nothing else that I want to do in my life,” Roy says.
Though Roy has lived around the world – first as a student in Argentina and France, and later in places including England and New Zealand – she returned to Arizona 10 years ago, starting a family and centering her art with natural, Western imagery. Wandering through the desert is where Roy feels most at home, she says.
“I always felt sort of a spiritual connection,” Roy says. “I find God in nature.”
Learn more at tinaroystudio.com.
The artist will compose a reference work digitally to guide her painting. Roy combines those staged photos and others into Artstudio Pro on her iPad, which is flecked with paint from past projects, and sketches elements with her stylus.
Roy forages items that will become the subjects of her paintings while hiking, including wildflowers, rocks and animal bones. “It feels like a little treasure hunt,” she says. The decaying and ephemeral pieces are an alluring prompt for her to explore questions of mortality and the juxtaposition of abundance and scarcity in the desert.
Shadow studies are a current focus of Roy’s work. To ensure she always has the light where she wants it, she’ll stage and photograph the scene.
A student of art history, Roy keeps stacks of art books on the desk in her studio. “I feel very comforted by books,” she says.
She bought this cattle skull at a shop in Tucson and named it Winston. Adorned with features and Tibetan necklaces, Winston hangs just off the entry to her studio and serves as a muse, often appearing in Roy’s works.
