“With elegance and patience, Tenaya Sims brings forth Life from the depths of darkness, light, and history itself.”
Tenaya has worked professionally as a teacher, gallery artist, business owner, and industry artist.
Tenaya began working in the video games industry at Crystal Dynamics (Eidos). He then attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. After earning his BFA from CMU, Tenaya returned to the video games industry, and worked for clients such as Activision and Eidos for several years. He then left the games industry to dedicate five years of full-time study to classical drawing and painting. He attended the Watts Atelier for one year before apprenticing with Juliette Aristides for four years.
Tenaya founded his own academy called Georgetown Atelier in 2008. After seven years as an independent organization, Georgetown Atelier merged with Gage Academy of Art in August, 2016.
Over the past 8 years, Tenaya has exhibited his work at a variety of galleries and venues, including the Salmagundi Club in New York, NY, and the MEAM Museum in Barcelona, Spain (as part of the ARC Salon), Abend Gallery in Denver, CO, and a solo show at Krab Jab Gallery in Seattle, WA. Tenaya has also exhibited multiple times as a ‘main show’ artist of IX ARTs in Redding, PA . In 2016, Tenaya won Best in Show for the 12th International ARC Salon Competition.
