Freedom Through “Forces of Nature”: Risa Tirado’s Senior Art Show

By Kaelin Viera

Senior Risa Tirado in their personal art studio in the VA (Photo by Kaelin Viera)

Risa Tirado looks like they were born in the Visual Arts building. Their paint-splattered pants match the studio floors, and their freshly dyed purple hair complements the vivid acrylic and oil paintings scattered about their space on the second floor. Tirado is a senior interdisciplinary arts major with concentrations in painting and graphic design and a minor in art history. They are a resident assistant in the Olde and the artistic director for the magazine Gem '67, but most of their time as of late has been taken up by their senior project, “Forces of Nature,” which is on display in the VA in Room 1019a from March 11-15.

Tell me about “Forces of Nature.”

“Forces of Nature” is my first solo show. I feel like there's nature that's controlled by all of these different forces. I don't view it as good and evil, but more like there's instincts. There's desire, there's love. I've been making these weird creatures, in the way that they interact with the plants and other animals, and cataloguing these relationships, like predator versus prey and plant versus animal. What's the in between? I've also been working with some cryptids [folklore creatures]. I feel like cryptids are these weird in-betweens of nature as well, and they're so different within every culture. I'm Puerto Rican, and I've been working with a lot of Latin American cryptids, which has been really fun, talking to people from different countries and seeing what are your legends? What are your stories?

Tirado’s “Transformation,” featuring their “little blob” (Photo by Kaelin Viera)

I feel like I have to ask you about this guy who's in a bunch of your paintings, a little blob.

Yes, my little blob. I love him so dearly. I made this weird little pink guy, and I really liked him, and I started putting him everywhere. I viewed him as this representation of these positive emotions and love within the natural world, and I just feel like I wanted to have more fun in my work.

When you say having more fun, do you mean in brainstorming or the actual process itself? I know art can be very tedious.

It can be very tedious. Last semester, I was doing a lot of oil paintings. But lately, I've just been pouring ink everywhere and then painting on top of it in acrylic paint and more ink. It forces you to work a lot faster. So it's a lot less tedious. Because I feel like the tediousness was getting at my motivation a little bit.

Tirado comparing a sketch to the finished piece (Photo by Kaelin Viera)

And what does it look like when you come into the studio? Are you throwing music on immediately?

Always. Always.

What are you listening to?

I listen to a lot of emo music, but sometimes that's not the vibe that I want in my painting. I want my work to feel more uplifting, more fun. There's a lot of Bad Bunny lately. I like K-pop, too.

If you had to pick one song that describes your senior project, what would it be?

I'd say “Love is Everywhere” by Magdalena Bay. That's kind of been the vibe that I've been feeling, like a newfound, refreshed love for painting and drawing and my work and the people around me.

Have there been times in the past few years when you were questioning if this is what you want to do?

Definitely. I didn't have much of a formal arts education before I came to college. I felt like I was playing catch-up with all these people who had gone to arts high schools. I would get harsh critiques from professors, and then it would make me question, “Am I good enough to be here?” When I started just making what I wanted, that made me feel better, and it made my work better. And then I got better critiques with my professors. I also studied abroad, which was a very positive experience, so that revitalized a lot for me.

I saw you had some posts about going to Japan. Tell me a little about that.

I went to Japan over the summer. They bring students from all over the world. We would meet a lot of the students and help them practice their English, and they would teach us about Japanese culture. It was like, “Oh my god, I'm free.” I loved going to the temples. I loved going out to dinner with the students and hearing about their lives. It was just a lot of different experiences.

I feel like, as an artist, you have to live to create art. You can't express yourself if you haven't learned who you are, and you learn who you are through those experiences.

Especially with travel. I'm from the Bronx, but I lived in Pennsylvania for three months in this rural town. And it was so different, but it was so beautiful. All the nature was not anything that I’d ever experienced before. That was a big inspiration for why I chose to go a nature-y route for my thesis.

Notes from Tirado’s friends from Japan (Photo by Kaelin Viera)

With your work, is there a lesson or an idea that you want people to take away?

I really just want people to experience the joy that I feel making my work. A lot of the world right now is very daunting. Being able to find joy in nature and those small moments is becoming more of this, like, revolutionary thing. And there’s so much nature dying, and AI is

poisoning everything. Finding that joy in nature and in fantasy and applying those lessons to the real world is something that can be really powerful.

What does this project mean to you?

I think it's proving to myself that I can make this consistent body of work and have it feel successful. I'm very proud of how far my art has come. It's the culmination of the past four years of experience, putting everything together and seeing it all. I'm probably gonna cry when I hang everything up in the room.