These pieces largely begin with watercolor or ink stains or washes that I build on in layers of painting and drawing to develop a topographical or map-like final product. It’s an unpredictable process informed by the patterns the wet media create while flowing and drying, which tend to remind me of the ways water influences geological formation. Many of them are named after mythical, lost, fictional, or otherwise unreal places.

The Propagation/Colonization sub-series incorporates found surfaces such as old book pages and wallpaper scraps, and more recently cyanotype prints (made by me), so that the images become like little worlds growing in unlikely places. The Illuminated sub-series are more explicitly like fantastical map or atlas fragments and include more illustrative/decorative elements and sometimes text.

If you’re interested in an available print or original that isn’t in my Etsy shop, please email me at info@tahliaday.com.

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