Artist Bio
Tafy is an Afro-Latina portrait artist based in NYC and Savannah, Georgia. Painting unique and vibrant portraits for unique and vibrant people!
At thirteen, she was diagnosed with type one diabetes. She was considered to be one of the older patients and did not have priority over the Nintendo 64. Tafy was given paper and a pen instead. Her days at the hospital were filled with drawing people as they passed by her room. This prompted her mother to put her in an art school. However, she was placed in a school where they only spoke Mandarin! There she learned to draw portraits and paint landscapes. Despite the language barrier, she realized how art in itself was a universal language.
As someone of Haitian descent, there was interest in her art skills and creating landscapes from Haiti. The pressure to be someone slowly made her dislike painting landscapes despite her skills in it. During pre-college she went abroad to Tuscany for a change of scenery. It was here when she had her canvas and paints out, overlooking a stunning landscape, when the sound of buzzing surrounded her. Moments later she realized she got stung by a bee because she couldn’t see out of one eye. SHE WAS ALLERGIC! Her eyelid had blown up.
An old Italian woman came to the hill where Tafy was and offered her to come to her home to remedy the bee sting by placing an onion over her eye. Naive and hopeful she followed. As she watched the woman interact with her family and go about her daily tasks, Tafy realized there and then her passion for telling people’s stories through portraiture. By creating portraits she could communicate an entire story about someone without having to say a word. And to connect despite where we may come from.