In an evolving landscape of contemporary art, Tiffany Trenda, a Santa Clarita native and renowned artist, aims to push boundaries with her captivating, unique, performative art and mixed media paintings by using technology and the human body in an interactive experience.
Trenda knew she wanted to pursue art as a career from a very early age. She nurtured her passion by taking painting lessons exploring oil, acrylics, drawing, and many other avenues.
Describing her artistic journey as an evolution, she discovered her unique style, performance art, by incorporating her other interests into her work.
With her minimal background in dance and growing hobbies such as photography and video, she began to put the puzzle pieces together to create a unique approach that has allowed her to take her art to various parts around the world.
“When I did that, I thought, ‘Oh, this is amazing,’” she said.
When she attended the UCLA Design and Media Arts program, she began to develop the notion of a wearable piece of art, she said. Wearables are a common theme seen throughout her performance installations.
“I get inspired by a lot of different things, whether it’s fashion, technology, and technology that we deal with,” Trenda said. “All of these different kind of devices, they’ve always kind of inspired me. How do they affect us, and how do they affect the body and the way we interact.”
One of Trenda’s notable performances titled “Body Code” debuted in 2012. Trenda herself wore a latex piece with QR Codes all over her body and spectators could scan the code and it would redirect them to a page where they could read Google searches consisting of data and a specific body part.
At the time, “QR Codes were a big thing back in 2011, 2012 and it was just so new people didn’t even know how to use it. It was just a lot more cumbersome. So when I started to think about it, that sort of inspired ‘Body Code,’” said Trenda.
Other works that Trenda has created and has performed herself throughout her 23-year career include “Ubiquitous States,” “Proximity Cinema” and “Specular,” among many others.
She has been featured in museums such as The Broad Art Museum in Los Angeles, the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, the Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City and recently had a sold-out show at the CONTEXT Art Miami in December.
Her career has gained respect and attention from different individuals in the art community. She has traveled around the world performing and connecting with audience members in her one-piece wearable art piece.
Recently Trenda has shifted gears to create mixed-media paintings inspired by her performance installation archives utilizing artificial intelligence applications and hand digital work, she said.
During the pandemic, social distancing protocol and events including performances were canceled, so Trenda couldn’t showcase her work the way she wished.
“They’re so intimate and physical. They’re all about bringing people closer. It really impacted how I thought about my work. So I started working with AI applications, I started thinking about my history, the performance and thinking how to do something [where] I’m not physically there.”
Although her art pieces aren’t interactive like her performance installations, Trenda has noticed that people still generate a feeling when looking at her work.
“So that’s about art, there’s also this feeling that you get to experience that I think is very unique.”
