Tania Skeaping
Artist Statement
My work is about shared spaces. I grew up in rural England and was aware of sharing the land with other species of flora and fauna. Having freedom to roam I had encounters with birds, farm animals, dogs, cats, rats, insects and parasites, as we crossed each other's spaces. I observed the constant ebbing and flowing of the seasons and growth as farmers re-drew their boundary hedges and the edges of sowed fields and then nature redrew hers. This is a tiny echo of the much bigger processes going on worldwide.
As a young adult, after a decade living in cities, I returned to rural living and saw anew the spaces and the things I had taken for granted as a child. I am inquisitive about this relationship between the domestic, the tame and the wild, and about how other artists and craftspeople have described it in their work. This relationship exemplifies the biggest question of our time; how we share with other humans and other flora and fauna the resources of our planet. By placing the non-human in an unexpected position within a composition my intention is to flip the old adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’. To extend that feeling of the unexpected I use colour and brush work to create a sense of the uncanny or strange.
Selected Exhibitions
A Room of One's Own, Irving Contemporary Oxford, (group) 2 March - 5 April 2024
The Ingram Prize, Finalist, Pavilion Gallery, Cromwell Place, London, from 22 – 26 November 2023
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, Woolwich Arsenal, London, (group) 26 - 29 October 2023
Do Not Swallow, Safehouse galleries 1 & 2, Peckham 19 - 24 September 2023
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, Woolwich Arsenal, London, (group) 3 - 6 November 2022
Catalyst, Oriel Canfas, Cardiff (group) 21 October - 6 November 2022
Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy, London (group) 21 June - 21 August 2022
169 Annual Open Exhibition, 2022, Royal West of England Academy 2022
A Room of Her Own, Group Exhibition, from 8th March 2022 online Irving Contemporary, Oxford (group)
Contemporary British Painting Prize 2021, long listed
Sustainability First Art and Writing Prize 2021, long listed
Explorers Against Extinction, Sketch for Survival 2021 Highly Commended
Figurative Art Now, 2021, Mall Galleries, London (group)
Summer Exhibition, shortlisted 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, Royal Academy, London (group)
John Moores Painting Prize, 2020, reached stage 2 (group)
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, 2020, Woolwich Arsenal, London, (group)
167 Open Exhibition, 2019, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, (group)
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, 2019, Woolwich Arsenal, London (group)
Wells Art Contemporary, 2018, Wells, Somerset (group)
166 Open Exhibition, 2018, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (group)
165 Open Exhibition, 2017, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (group)
The Observatory: perspectives on landscape, society and spirit, 2017, Exeter University (group)
Drawn, 2017, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (group)
ING Discerning Eye Exhibition, selected by Chris Orr RA, 2016, Mall Galleries, London (group)
164 Open Exhibition, 2016, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (group)
Lynn Painters’ and Stainers’ prize, 2016, Mall Galleries, London (group)
163 Open Exhibition, 2015, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (group)
Education
Turps Correspondence Course 2021/22, 22/23, 23/24
Visual Studies and History of Art, Oxford Brookes University, Joint Hons 1992-1995
Foundation Art Studies, Plymouth University, 1991
Residencies
JOYA AiR, the Parque Natural Sierra María - Los Vélez, Andalucía, Spain, 4-11 April 2024