Speak the Dark, work by Mairin-Taj Caya at curio.

A title formed by an inward search of the heart and mind that has yielded many secret, hidden, and otherwise unspoken scenes. “I’m communicating an inner world. This work focus is coming through the dark of the subconscious, through time, and memory, into a spotlight.”

Mairin-Taj is a storyteller. Someone with an ability to weave the threads of our past with those of our present. Enchanting and educating, her visual expressions feel ancient and familiar, yet somehow contemporary and fresh. Speaking to truths that have been learned, tested, forgotten & rediscovered, her drawings and paintings tell of people, places, and objects that we can’t help but feel connected to even when meeting for the first time.

“Coming out of a few years of self-excavation, through the Covid-19 paradigm shift, and other personal transitions in lifestyle on the home-front, I’ve discovered my art practice dredging for a more honest way to express a rather long and subjective story in the making. There seems to be a massive global shift that mirrors the thread of deeply personal reconnection to matriarchal energy, which is something I need to explore from my own experience.”

Mairin-Taj began drawing at the age of three. From her childhood at home in the woodlands of Western NY, inspired by Irish legends and Native mythos – influenced by Brazilian visionary artist Susan Seddon Boulet and prolific English illustrator Alan Lee – she developed a Venn diagram of passions. A nerd-sense for story, & a creative vocabulary that still informs her work today. She earned her BFA in Illustration at Pennsylvania College of Art & Design in Lancaster, PA, mentored under award-winning fantasy illustrator Gary Lippincott, worked with traditional painting master Ken Laager. Her works are published in the International Art Book “Infected By Art”, Vol. 4, and Vol. 7. Caya currently lives with her partner, kid, and feline studio assistant, south of the Appalachian Trail, in Pennsylvania.