Tanya Chaitow, Waltzing with Goya, 2019
"Telling Tales is an exhibition inspired by the work of the European Old Masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. These paintings are situated within the domestic interiors and bucolic gardens that reflected the zeitgeist of the time. The beautifully renovated 122 year old St Brigid's and its expansive view over the gardens provides a fitting backdrop for these fanciful portraits that reflect the historical similarities and speak of past and present, real and imagined and resonate across continents. In my paintings I search for the alchemy that emerges from the contradiction where things are not as they seem. Everyday observations are merged with magical elements as the boundaries between reality and fiction and past and present blur. Disrupting and decontextualizing art history inspires me to tell my own story, speaking of a shared humanity and kinship between all sentient beings in the natural world."
Tanya Chaitow has a Master of Fine Arts from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, a Bachelor of Fine Arts from COFA, a Bachelor of Arts, HONS, in Theatre and English literature, from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
In 2007 she completed a three month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, returning in 2010 for a second residency where she worked with the mime theatres of Paris. Tanya Chaitow worked with the Bell Shakespeare company drawing from their rehearsals. She has exhibited regularly with Stella Downer Fine Art since 2007 and since 2019 with Anthea Polson Art Gallery, Queensland. She has been been hung in multiple group shows and prestigious art prizes such as the Dobell Drawing Prize (4 times), the Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize, the Kedumba Drawing Prize, the Fisher's Ghost Art Prize, the Hazelhurst Art on Paper Prize , the Blake Prize (3 times), the Mosman Art Prize (3 times), the Salon des Refusés Art Prize, the Fleurieu Peninsula Art Prize, the Melbourne Art Fair (3 times) and any more as well as being published in Art Collector, Artist Profile and others. Her work is held in collections in Australia and overseas.