"This is my happy place," Tezeno said. "I cut paper and I paste it down. So it's almost like playing with paper dolls."
Evita Tezeno is a collage artist who spends about 12-hours a day, 6-days a week inside her Dallas art studio working on her latest project; a 19-piece collection of collages inspired by the pandemic.
"It's called 'Daughters of the Crown'," Tezeno said, pointing out the 'corona' means crown. "I was sketching one night and looking at the news, and it just came to me."
Each piece features the same character, depicted with different aspects of living in a pandemic.
"I chose a Black woman to represent that," Tezeno said. "It's very personal. It's very personal. I had an artist friend that perished because of COVID."
This week the United States surpassed 200,000 deaths due to COVID-19.
"The figures are so overwhelming," Tezeno said. "So many people are dying and time is running out."
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'Time Is Running Out' is the title of one piece that shows a woman holding an hourglass. Another is called 'Shelter in Place'.
"She's holding a home and she's holding it close to her," Tezeno said. She wants her work to depict the emotions people have felt living in such strange times. "People are really afraid to be close to people. It is a little depressing."
Tezeno also wanted her art to show hope. She pointed to a completed piece that shows a woman holding an open box of butterflies.
"That's transformation. We are transformed. We will never be the same after this," Tezeno said. "So there's beauty ahead in the midst of everything that has happened."
Tezeno has finished about one-third of her 19-part series. She is planning a traveling exhibition.
Some of Tezeno's high profile customers include actors Samuel L. Jackson and Denzel Washington. If you'd like to see more of Tezeno's work, you can follow her on Instagram here.
