Jade Tantillo paints with a wink and a lump in the throat. Her figurative works in oil and mixed media draw on western and old-Hollywood iconography — cowboys, poppies, Moon River, Holly Golightly — and use that borrowed vocabulary to mine memory, affection and emotional inheritance. The vintage surface is a disguise. The feeling underneath is sincere.
Western Iconography Doing Real Emotional Work
Midnight Rider (hand-drawn and painted mixed media on canvas, 2024, 152.4 × 152.4 cm, USD 5,400) is the largest available work and the clearest statement of the method. The rider is a familiar figure in her vocabulary, pulled from the same well as Moon River and Holly Golightly, and used less as narrative than as a container. A cowboy at a metre and a half square is an image you have seen a hundred times before; the drawn line underneath it is not joking at all.
That borrowing is the strategy, not a shortcut. Recognisable iconography arrives pre-loaded — you already know how a cowboy is supposed to make you feel before you have finished looking — which frees the painting to spend its energy somewhere other than establishing a subject. It is a move that has become central to the current wave of figurative painting: rather than inventing new imagery, a generation of painters is reworking images the culture already carries, and letting the gap between the cliché and the handling do the emotional work. Tantillo widens that gap deliberately. The subject is warm and familiar; the mark-making is not.
The canvas carries a 1.5-inch bordered wrap so the image continues around its edges, which keeps the painting from behaving like a poster of itself. Nostalgia is the entry point here, not the destination.
Why Does the Vintage Surface Matter?
Because a worn surface gives sentiment somewhere to hide. Paint an affectionate subject cleanly and it reads as sweet; hand-work it until it looks like something recovered rather than made, and the same subject reads as remembered. Tantillo's texture is the permission structure for the feeling.
Mechanically, that means drawn structure laid down first and then partly buried — layered, abraded, worked back into — so the underdrawing surfaces in places and disappears in others. The result behaves less like an image printed on a support and more like an object that has survived something. That distinction matters in person in a way reproductions flatten: the drawing reads at close range, the image resolves from across a room, and the two do not quite agree with each other. Living with the work means moving between those two readings.
Moon River (mixed media on museum-quality canvas, 2025, 76.2 × 76.2 cm, USD 1,200) is the cleanest demonstration. It is named for the daydreamy singsong associated with Holly Golightly — a cultural reference, treated as subject matter — and at this scale the square composition gives that reference room to breathe. The worn, hand-worked texture carries as much of the sentiment as the image does.
Poppies, Leather and the Motifs She Returns To
Poppa's Poppies (mixed media on museum-quality canvas, 2024, 101.6 × 101.6 cm, USD 3,900) puts the recurring poppy motif to work on memory and emotional inheritance directly, the title doing half the job before you reach the paint. Drawn structure sits under layered, tactile marks; meaning surfaces through colour and gesture rather than narration.
Leather & (East)Wood (hand-drawn and painted on paper, 2025, 50.8 × 50.8 cm, USD 1,450) is the quiet outlier — softness against structure, organic matter against crafted form, asking how surfaces carry identity. It arrives matted and framed in natural oak, which suits it.
Two more works from the same 2024 group show what happens when she drops the borrowed imagery entirely. Out with a Bang (mixed media on museum-quality canvas, 101.6 × 101.6 cm, USD 3,900) trades a named subject for pure gesture — an ending that asserts itself rather than fading, built from drawn structure under charged, contrasting paint. Tender Hearted Poke (same medium, year, size and price) names the tension outright: a gentle provocation held open instead of resolved, drawn clarity set against spontaneous layering. Read alongside the cowboys and the poppies, they clarify that the western vocabulary was never the point — it was scaffolding for a temperament that works fine without it.
Where She Sits Among Art of NOMA's Painters
Tantillo is not alone in this register. Gareth Stehr approaches similar territory from the opposite side — 500 Miles Of Good Luck (acrylic and aerosol, 2025, 126 × 86 cm, USD 4,125) runs street iconography and aerosol abrasion against structure, measuring distance in persistence rather than miles. Where Tantillo softens a hard image, Stehr roughens a fast one; both end up at the same place, using surface damage to make sentiment credible.
Tori Pounds works the object side of the same instinct. Dorothy Shoes (oil on canvas, 2024, 60 × 50 cm, USD 2,000) takes a shoe loaded with cultural association — journey, desire, transformation — and paints it so it stays recognisable without ever being explained. That is a useful comparison for anyone weighing a Tantillo: both painters trust a familiar object to carry feeling, but Pounds does it through oil's soft transitions where Tantillo does it through mixed-media friction.
Where a New Collector Might Begin
Her available catalogue spans USD 1,200 to USD 5,400 across six works, which is a narrow enough range that the choice is genuinely about the work rather than the tier. Moon River at USD 1,200 and Leather & (East)Wood at USD 1,450 are small-format entry points that lose none of the character; Poppa's Poppies, Out with a Bang and Tender Hearted Poke sit together at USD 3,900 in the 101.6 cm square format; Midnight Rider is the outlier in scale.
A body of work this tight is easier to judge than a sprawling one. Six pieces, three of them the same size and price, means you are not being asked to guess where an artist is heading — you can see the range in a single sitting and pick on response rather than on strategy. That is worth something. Most collecting mistakes at the emerging level come from buying a single image in isolation, without any sense of whether it is representative or an anomaly.
Every price is published on the piece itself — nothing is listed as price on request. Art of NOMA is an online gallery with no physical space, so you can sit with a painting for a month before asking anything, and no one is waiting in the room while you think.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Jade Tantillo?
Jade Tantillo is a contemporary figurative artist represented by Art of NOMA. She works in oil and mixed media, drawing on western and old-Hollywood iconography — cowboys, poppies, Moon River, Holly Golightly — to hold humor against real tenderness while mining memory, affection and emotional inheritance.
What medium does Jade Tantillo work in?
Mostly hand-drawn and painted mixed media on museum-quality canvas, usually with a 1.5-inch bordered wrap so the image carries around the edge, alongside original works on paper. Every available piece is a unique original supplied with a certificate of authenticity.
How much does a Jade Tantillo painting cost?
Available originals run from USD 1,200 for Moon River at 76.2 × 76.2 cm to USD 5,400 for Midnight Rider at 152.4 × 152.4 cm. Leather & (East)Wood on paper is USD 1,450, and Poppa's Poppies, Out with a Bang and Tender Hearted Poke are each USD 3,900. Every price is shown on the work.
What size are Jade Tantillo's paintings?
They range from 50.8 × 50.8 cm (20 × 20 in) for the work on paper to 152.4 × 152.4 cm (60 × 60 in) for Midnight Rider, with three works at 101.6 × 101.6 cm (40 × 40 in). The formats are consistently square. Exact dimensions in centimetres and inches are listed on every piece.
Where can I buy original Jade Tantillo art?
Original paintings and works on paper by Jade Tantillo are available directly from Art of NOMA, an online gallery that ships internationally. Browse everything currently available on her artist collection page, where each listing shows medium, year, dimensions and price.
Browse every available work on the Jade Tantillo collection, explore more original paintings, or meet the full roster on our artists page. If a particular piece holds your attention, the enquiry form on each listing reaches us directly — no appointment, no pressure.