Tanya Raabe's Blog
Tanya Raabe makes some more paintings... Revealing Culture: HeadOn
29 July 2010
Its still all go in the world of Revealing Culture HeadOn... now where have I got up to.
Well... the charismatic Tom Shakespeare sat for his portrait in Tate Modern earlier this month and what a great day it was. When we opened the doors for the public, they came in waves joining us in strange, sometimes challenging conversations about how we manage life, pain and struggle.
This lead to more artistic debates about composition, line, colour and structure... It was quite surreal at times as we were once again an art exhibit in our own right. People who joined us were from New Zealand, Belgium, Italy, Africa, Sweden, California, and more. Some people had travelled especially for the event from Norwich and Glasgow. Well I was impressed!
Tom said this about the Sitting: "I was honoured to be included in Tanya's selection of sitters representative of the diversity of disability culture. Having visited the Tate so often, it was fun to be part of the display, not part of the audience, and to experience how Tanya works as an artist. When the doors opened in the afternoon, and random visitors trickled and sometimes flooded into our little studio, we had some good banter but also I think challenged some preconceptions about disability. It's always strange and a little disturbing to see how other people see you, but I look forward to seeing myself through Tanya's eyes."
You can see some of the photos of Tom's sitting on flickr
So what's next on this fantastic journey? Well now I'm in my studio starting to paint the portraits of all these interesting people. My studio is based in my house in the scenic Shropshire Hills. It's very quiet so I can think solely about these characters as I get consumed by the paint. To get you all started on this part of the journey with me check out these photos on flickr of the progress so far. I think they are looking Rather good. What do you think?
Keywords: aug10,disability art
Comments
Colin Hambrook
The nude painting of Gary Robson looks amazing Tanya. What plans do you have for exhibiting this work?
Shep
Wonderful paintings, i love the energy and vibrancy you give your subjects i was reminded of Lucien freud somewhat. Very inspirational, i have only just started painting again and have been overjoyed to view such incredible and diverse Art on line, i look forward to seeing more of your work. Shep(ruffdogart)
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