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Who'S WhO:Defining Faces of an Arts Movement by Tanya Raabe
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Who'S WhO:Defining Faces of an Arts Movement by Tanya Raabe
Who’S WhO: Defining Faces of an Arts Movement is a collection of contemporary portraits by Artist Tanya Raabe, funded by Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts. The portraits challenge the notion of portraiture using disability aesthetics and visual language and will be exhibited from 15th March 2008 in the Gallery at Faith House, Holton Lee Dorset.
The Oil paintings and multi media portraits are of established and emerging disabled artists, who have and continue to pioneer disability arts and culture. The multi media portraits combine sound, vision and text through interviews, studio drawings and digital photography. Each artist has been chosen because of their influence in shaping disability art as an arts movement in its own right. Portraits include performer, writer and singer Julie McNamara. Actor, performer and writer Mat Fraser and painter and disability arts writer Colin Hambrook.
Other portraits include the following:
Dr Paul Darke – Academic, artist and writer
Colin Hambrook – Painter and Disability arts writer
Tony Heaton - Sculptor, Director of Arts and Environment of Holton Lee and pioneer of NDACA
Nikki Hewish - Deaf artist – installation artist
David King – 3D fantasy digital artist
Zoe Partington – Solinger - Installation artist and disability arts consultant
Alan Sutherland -Writer, play write, performance and poet
Joy Tudor- Textile and digital artist
Tanya Raabe explains her work in more detail: ‘I have created a portrait of each artist as an oil painting exploring my personal relationship with them, the art work illustrates the position of each artist in a challenging society of perfection, beauty, and normality.’
The exhibition is open daily from 15th March – 19th May 2008. Please call in advance to avoid disappointment as Faith House is sometimes used for private bookings. Please contact 01202 625562, email arts@holtonlee.co.uk for more information.
PRESS RELEASE
Who'S WhO: Defining Faces of an Arts Movement
Who’S WhO: Defining Faces of an Arts Movement is a collection of contemporary portraits by Artist Tanya Raabe, funded by Arts Council England, Grants for the Arts. The portraits challenge the notion of portraiture using disability aesthetics and visual language and will be exhibited from 15th March 2008 in the Gallery at Faith House, Holton Lee Dorset.
The Oil paintings and multi media portraits are of established and emerging disabled artists, who have and continue to pioneer disability arts and culture. The multi media portraits combine sound, vision and text through interviews, studio drawings and digital photography. Each artist has been chosen because of their influence in shaping disability art as an arts movement in its own right. Portraits include performer, writer and singer Julie McNamara. Actor, performer and writer Mat Fraser and painter and disability arts writer Colin Hambrook.
Tanya Raabe explains her work in more detail: ‘I have created a portrait of each artist as an oil painting exploring my personal relationship with them, the art work illustrates the position of each artist in a challenging society of perfection, beauty, and normality.’
The exhibition is open daily from 15th March – 19th May 2008. Please call in advance to avoid disappointment as Faith House is sometimes used for private bookings. Please contact 01202 625562, email arts@holtonlee.co.uk or visit our website www.holtonlee.co.uk/arts for more information.
**ENDS**
For further information contact: Debbie Horan Tel: 01202 625562
Email: arts@holtonlee.co.uk
Artist Tanya Raabe with Julie McNamara, Colin Hambrook, Tony Heaton and Allan Sutherland |
Who’S WhO - Tanya Raabe
Defining Faces of an Arts Movement
The Gallery at Faith House, Holton Lee, Dorset - until 19th May 2008
The launch of Tanya Raabe’s long awaited collection of portraits: Who’s Who – Defining Faces of a Movement, this is an extraordinary body of work from a disabled artist who should by now have secured her place in the mainstream. It beggars belief that this work was recently turned down at the National Portrait Gallery, where it undoubtedly belongs.
Ten boldly designed portraits dominate the Gallery at Faith House, each painting a visceral and tangible embodiment of the spirit of the sitters. To walk into the space where they are hanging is to walk into a room crowded with conversation, alive with laughter, with the spirit and sass of those she has depicted. Carefully hung so that the viewer’s eye travels from the centre of the room towards the first one and then another of the portraits possessing the space. Only one painting is directed towards the centre of the room, a fabulously executed representation of Colin Hambrook, with a strong focus on light, keeping one in mind of the Dutch masters.
Her work has a pace and energy about it previously understated in her painting. Her attack with colour and shape has taken off in new directions with a passionate experimentation and a genuine love of her subject matter: the faces of those who have influenced her as a disabled artist and the faces of those she has influenced. She has looked back and then draws us forward to the future torch bearers who will follow.
I first came across Tanya Raabe’s paintings through London Disability Arts Forum amongst a series of works in Postal Strike! co-ordinated by Allan Sutherland with Diane Pungartnik, printed as post cards to reach thousands of disabled arts lovers who cannot access galleries. Tanya’s work sung out with a flare for colour and an eye for design. She has long since developed a signature style with a maturity and daring that takes her work into a new realm.
These are ten faces of the Disability Arts Movement who share her passion for social justice and for celebration of the challenge to those who still scream for the survival of the fittest. This exhibition is a national treasure and deserves to be seen on a global stage. Now!
© Julie McNamara FRSA
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