The art of Greenburgh resident Tanya Evans-Johnson is proof that one doesn’t need a traditional medium to make a masterpiece. Forgoing graphite, oil paint and ink, Evans-Johnson opts for a material most of us overlook: trash. Her studio, known as DRIFT (Designing Reclaimed Items from Trash) is full of carefully selected pieces of cardboard, and a myriad of other discarded materials, waiting to be made into a work of art. Even her frames are recycled.
After spending her years as an art student at the University of Maryland, then an art teacher and early childhood educator throughout Connecticut and New York, she took the time the Covid-19 pandemic forced upon us and went back to her roots as an artist, creating works of her own and founding her studio earlier this year. These works are now displayed in Greenburgh Town Hall, as her first-ever exhibition.
In order to make her paper projects, Evans-Johnson collects discarded boxes, bags, buttons and anything else she can find. She then takes that cardboard and “sculpts” with it, making art that “leaps off the walls and engages viewers,” in the words of the Greenberg Executive Director of Cultural Affairs Sarah Bracey White. They appear almost as 3D paintings, with layer after layer of cardboard and other discarded items building up from the flat surface the work is set onto.
At times, Evans-Johnson doesn’t even plan what she’ll use a certain material for. It just calls to her. At other times, however, she has exact plans in 
mind. She takes apart braided bag handles to make hair and has a piece of driftwood that is on its way to becoming a model guitar. And although she cites inspiration from famous artists such as Picasso and Van Gogh, Johnson’s work is uniquely her own. Evans-Johnson views herself as a contemporary artist with her mixed media works and variety of nontraditional materials. Using paint, technical skill, and creative thinking, she beautifully converts these overlooked items into a modern masterpiece. Take, for example, the detail on her animal masks. From a wild lion’s mane to a giraffe’s eyelashes, she can find a way to artfully represent anything on canvas – or cardboard.
Evans-Johnson took the road to her exhibition into her own hands. After showing at the Greenburgh Artists and Crafts market in 2023, she called Bracey White about creating an exhibit. Lo and behold, she agreed. The display opened in October and will run until Dec. 30.
After getting her gallery approved, she organized her pieces in a way that told a story. Laying out her pieces on a wall, she carefully selected the order and placing of each individual work of art. All of her animals go in one space. Her portraits go in another. Separate from the other portraits, her Bald Beauty series, celebrating the beauty of alopecia, are in their own section. Her driftwood sculptures, spinners and windchimes, have a hallway all to themselves.
Even though her exhibition in Greenburgh Town Hall is her first, it will not be her last. Evans-Johnson already has plans to display her work in Ossining Public Library in February 2025, and the White Plains and Greenburgh Public Libraries later in the year. These galleries will feature an expansion on her Bald Beauty series called I am Not My Hair as well as works about African-American music. Each showing will be accompanied by a workshop and informational pamphlets on sustainable art.
“I found Tanya’s work stunning. Other employees also have been very impressed with her creativity.” says Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner. “I have seen many visitors to Town Hall smiling when they look at her art. She’s creative, talented and deserves to be discovered. I think she has a great future ahead of her.”
