The Journey

It's been an unusually international and interdisciplinary journey for me to have my card finally say "ARTIST."

First, let me start with my name. The "Tjia" is pronounced "CHEE-ah" and is the Americanized pronunciation of the Fujianese reading of the Chinese surname 謝 (Xie in Mandarin) written with the Indonesian spelling. Even my name has its own history of travel, it seems.

Beginnings

I started from a childhood in Indonesia, then onwards to high school years in Hong Kong, followed by college in America. With only a Bachelor's in East Asian Studies, I found myself after graduation in a career in banking--astonishing even to myself--that placed me for over 20 years in J.P. Morgan, first in New York, then Hong Kong and then back again to New York. After that, I became a financial modeling developer and consultant for major banks. I capped my career with a six-year stint as Executive Director in Banco Santander, New York, from which I retired in 2024.

Waiting behind the scenes

Where was the artist all this time? The artist was always there--in the wings, waiting. I remember I loved drawing as a youngster; I was enthusiastic about SLR cameras in my high school days; I took photography and drawing classes in college; I bought oil painting supplies for what little spare time I had as an investment banker in Hong Kong. Even the niche that I carved for myself in my banking career had a large visual design component: I was a developer of financial models for the lending teams. The complex accounting aside, every object on the screen had to do double-duty as visual informational and guidance graphic elements, so that users could self-direct completing each screen without confusion. (See my book "Building Financial Models", McGraw-Hill, 3rd edition, on Amazon.)

Seeing

I've had a good "camera eye" from my days of shooting photos with SLR cameras. I use that eye now for the start of many paintings. Often, I come across a scene during the day and I think "Now that's an interesting picture..." Usually, it's something about the quality of the light, the unusualness of the lines of perspective, the eye-catching mix of the colors, or something else, perhaps the mood of the scene. The mood can be one of joy, or celebration, or one of serenity and quiet: the simple blessedness of being alive; and sometimes even one of solitude and melancholy. That mood is what I want to capture in my painting. In a quick move, I take my iPhone out and take a picture for reference!

I know I have a good painting in the making when there is a sense of stillness in the scene I have captured.

Arriving

I began to take up oil painting earnestly over 15 years ago by taking art classes for pointers on how to create a painting, but more importantly for the discipline and routine of getting to the easel and painting. Now retired, I continue to do studio work. I am starting to submit my artwork to exhibits through community art collectives and, happily, finding buyers for my art. (I am now also closely involved with Subud in New York, an organization with a spiritual practice for, in essence, how to be a better person. But that is another story.)

It's been a long journey, and here I am. In this website, I present the results of the artist I have become.