ARTIST STATEMENT
Focused primarily on investigating intersections between people and nature, my art practice operates on two parallel channels. One is personal and introspective, concerned with reaching a state where intuition is principal, and meditation is possible. The other is informed by a background in environmental studies and based on site-visits and textural swatches of landscapes, exploring how memories and identities bind to specific places.
With a diasporic childhood that led me through drastically different cultures, climates, and neighborhoods, I sought grounding in the continuity between places. This often manifested as an affinity for the natural world, where language and race were not barriers to connection. My eyes eventually became trained to see the similar signs of life, both human and otherwise, that are embedded in the land regardless of its location.
These days, the landscapes I paint are blends of the places I’ve lived in or visited, where I have loved ones, and where I can imagine being. Figures appear to embody my questions of how to be rooted within ever-shifting environments. My color palettes and texture choices reflect a regular practice of walking and photographing surfaces, often looking for evidence of the cycles of decay, repair, and reinvention. I enjoy studying change in inanimate surfaces such as crumbling brick, just as much as I might in a backyard’s lawn over the course of a year’s seasons. I find comfort and motivation in the inevitability of change and the weathering of time, and aim to create paintings that depict the landscape as a site of unpredictability, yet also one tethered to tradition and memory.
The paper I’m currently painting on is salvaged, and has lived many lives before becoming the surface for my current body of work. Years of operating as a building super reveal themselves in my inclination to save and store materials ripe with potential to be reused and repurposed. My current practice starts with leftover house paint, and focuses on abstract landscapes built in thin layers of paint and collage. The first stage is largely improvisational. I work standing and move based on the sensory experience of creating sound and friction as I pull paint over paper. This first step is about staying connected to the creative impulse that emerges without overthinking or critique.
The large initial papers are then sliced into many pieces, so that each smaller composition begins with an unexpected surface. I pick out shapes and textures and build abstract landscapes tailored to the time, location, and research relevant to that series of work. In the end, I’m left with dissolving, colorful, and abstract landscapes that nevertheless reflect snapshots of a recognizable place.
BIO
Tesia T. Singh-Ragen was born in Brooklyn and raised in Oregon, India, and New York City. Based in New York, she works in paint, drawing, textiles, and collage. Tesia has been selected as a 2026 artist in residence at Estudio Arriba Abajo in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, and as an Acedia Studios Spotlight Artist. She is also a decorative painter specializing in gilding, stencil work, handmade wallpapers, and window displays.
CV
EDUCATION
2023 BA, Environmental Studies, Studio Art, Art History, Oberlin College, OH
EXHIBITIONS
2026 Bushwick Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY
2026 Signals, ErF NYC, Brooklyn, NY
2026 En Plena Forma, Estudio Arriba Abajo, Old San Juan, PR
2026 8Ball Zine Fair, LifeWorld, Brooklyn, NY
2025 Estudio Arriba Abajo Pop Up, 78 7th Ave, New York, NY
2025 Bushwick Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY
2025 Web As Altar, The Living Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2023 Be/Coming Home: Liberatory Environmental Art, George Jones Farm, Oberlin, OH
2023 Asian Night Market Presented by Solarity, Oberlin, OH
2019-2023 Art Walk, Oberlin College, OH
2022 مخل (Disruptive), Omid Shekari, The Sculpture Center, Cleveland, OH
2021 Pine, Plum, Bamboo Exhibition and Gallery Talk, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2023-Present Painter at Mark Giglio Decorative Painting, Brooklyn, NY
2026 Window Display, Arsenal Studios
2024 Logo Design for ‘Ōhi’a Midwifery and Wellness LLC, Kealakekua, HI
2024 Assistant Painter, Adam McEwan, Queens, NY
2020 TSR x Coldbirds, Fundraiser Line for the Audre Lorde Project, Brooklyn, NY
2020 Logo Design for Dukes Social Club, Brooklyn, NY
ARTS INSTITUTIONS
2026 The Armory Show, VIP Events and Services, New York, NY
2025 The Armory Show, VIP Events, New York, NY
2023-2024 Marketing Coordinator and Docent, The Arts Center at Duck Creek, Springs, NY
2022-2023 Curatorial Assistant in Asian Art, Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM), Oberlin, OH
2020-2021 Executive Assistant, Art Law Offices of Gale P. Elston P.C., Hampton Bays, NY
2017 Youth Insights Artists, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
RESIDENCIES & AWARDS
2026 Estudio Arriba Abajo Artist in Residence, Old San Juan, PR
2023 Green Edge Fund Sustainability Grant for Art
2023 Phi Beta Kappa Honors
2019-2023 John F. Oberlin Scholarship
SELECTED ARTICLES
2026 Ndu, Christopher, and Ethan Tran. “Mountain Memory with Tesia.” Acedia Spotlight, April 18, 2026, Acedia Studios https://acediastudios.com/spotlight/tesia
2022 Egendorf, S.P., Li, E.*, He, E.*, Cheng, Z., Spliethoff, H.M., Shayler, H.A., et. al., “Effectiveness of washing in reducing lead concentrations of lettuce grown in urban garden soils.” Journal of Environmental Quality 51, 755-764.
2021 Woltring, Maeve. “Makers Market: The Cornucopia of Student Craft,” The Oberlin Review, 13 Aug.
TEACHING
2023-2024 Comprehensive Violence Prevention and Self Defense, PREPARE, New York, NY
2020-2022 Peer Advising Leader (PAL), Oberlin, OH