ALLA TKACHUK

On this page:

• Royal Opera portraits 
• King Charles portrait series
• The 20th century dictators
  
• Instigative 5D heads
• 'I Think I might be Jesus' and other work
• African sketches

ROYAL OPERA PORTRAITS

1997-18

Between 1997 and 2018, Alla painted 'opera portraits' of world-renowned opera singers images of them in stage characters at the Royal Opera House:

• Sir John Tomlinson - as Boris Godunov in Modest Mussorgsky’s ‘Boris Godunov’ opera; Boris Ismailov in Dmitri Shostakovich’s ‘Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk’; Méphistophélès in Arrigo Boito’s ‘Méphistophélès’ opera; Hagen in Richard Wagner's ‘Götterdämmerung’ opera; Hunding in Richard Wagner's ‘Die Walküre’ opera; and Asterious in Harrison Birtwistle’s ‘The Minotaur’ opera
• Dmitri Hvorostovsky - as Onegin in Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s ‘Eugene Onegin’ opera
• Sir Bryn Terfel - as Wotan in Richard Wagner’s ‘Der Ring des Nibelungen’ opera
• Dame Felicity Lott - as Marschallin in Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier’ opera
• Angela Gheorghiu - as Magda in Puccini's ‘La rondine’ opera
• Sir Willard White - as Coppélius in Jacques Offenbach’s ‘The Tales of Hoffmann’ opera
• Sir Thomas Allen - as Don Alfonzo in Mozart's ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ opera
• Jose Cura - as Samson in Camille Saint-Saëns’ ‘Samson and Delilah’ opera

Testimonials of the sitters:

Sir Bryn Terfel: “The portrait looks fabulous. I love it. And it is exactly what I did on the stage. Thanks for that.”

Sir John Tomlinson: “Alla captured so vividly and with such insight the characters I played on stage reaching into the very soul of these creations.”

Sir Thomas Allen: "Thank you, Alla, so much for your portrait of me as Don Alfonso. I look like one of those awful men referred to as a lounge lizard. You captured him well. Brava."

Exhibited at: the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Royal Opera House Shop, and the Russian Culture House in London.

PRINCE CHARLES PORTRAIT SERIES

2000-02

The portrait series of  King Charles III (former Prince Charles) was created in 2001-02 following a sitting at Highgrove. The portraits including the 'Black Prince' and 'Prince of Cool' featured on the front pages of The Times (UK) and Bild (Germany), as well as ITV, BSN, Der Spiegel, Hello, Jackdaw Art Review, and other press and media. ‘Black Prince’  became a  cover of the literary magazine Der Freund (Germany) and won the Lead Award's Gold Medal ‘The Best Magazine Cover of  2005'.

The work was exhibited at Ebury Galleries ( John Adams Fine Art) in London's Belgravia in 2002.

THENTIETH CENTURY DICTATORS

2002-2009

This series of paintings, floor adhesive prints, posters, wallpaper & textile design, a large billboard, 'merchandise' items (such as a mug and cushions), and an animation -explores explores historical figures of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Mao, and Stalin in contemporary context.

The series was exhibited at Crone Gallery in Berlin in 2007. Alla was named the 'Critic's Choice' by Saatchi Art in November 2007.

Animation 'Christ is Not an Aryan' was screened on Europe’s largest digital screen on top of the Axel Springer building and was dabbed as “one of three things to see in Berlin” by Bild (Germany) and BZ Magazine (Germany).

'Siamese Twins' painting featured as ‘The Image of the Week' in The Times' Art Review.

The life-size portraits featured in the literary magazine Der Freund (Germany) in December 2005.

Other images also featured in Berliner Morgenpost, Sleek magazine, and Die Welt.

The series is composed of these nine art groups:

• Five full length paintings of Hitler, Mussolini, Mao, Stalin, and Franco’, oil on gessoed wood
• Four ‘Heads’, adhesive floor acrylic prints
• Four plus ‘Torsos’, posters
• Four 'Limb Compositions', posters
• One ‘Dictators TM’, large a 48-sheet billboard poster
• One 'Group Portrait', a Dictators' group portrait, oil on paper painting mounted on board
• ‘Christ is not an Aryan’, an animation
• Paintings ‘Siamese Twins’ and 'They have not stopped dancing yet', oil on wood
• Various merchandise items such as a Dictators Mug and Dictators Cushions.

That are intended to be exhibited as the following environs:

1. Five original full length Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Stalin, and Franco paintings
2. Four Large ‘Heads’ vinyls and the 'Dictators TM’ billboard
3. Four large ‘Torsos’ posters
4. Four large 'Limbs Composition' posters accompanied by 'organic sounds of personal nature' acoustic environment activated by the motion-sensing technology
5. 'Group Portrait' wallpaper covers three walls of the room; ‘Christ is not an Aryan’ is projected on an empty wall; there is a sofa in the room upholstered in 'Group Portrait' fabric
6. Original ‘Siamese Twins’ and 'They have not stopped dancing yet' painting
7. And the final environ: various merchandise items are sold; the audience ‘buys into the Dictators’.

Environ 1.

Naked Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Stalin, and  Franco

Environ 2.

‘Heads’ and 'Dictators TM’

• Environ 3.
• ‘Torsos’ prints

Environ 4.

'Limb composites'

Environ 5.

'Group Portrait' wallpaper, and animation ‘Jesus is Not an Aryan’.

Environ 6.

Double portraits

Environ 7.

Memorabilia

INSTIGATIVE 5D HEADS

2004-08

Alla explored the transformation of production and consumption of contemporary portraiture through 3D digital technologies.

Scanning heads of life models using 3D medical scans ('texture maps'), Alla painted those 'maps' in oil, merged them into 3D digital portraits using software, and then further moulded them in space and time. The works were exhibited as 3D-printed models and projections accompanied by 'electro-acoustic landscapes'.

In 2007, the 'Heads' were shown at the Shunt, London, using motion-sensing technology so visitors could interact with them.

In 2006, the 'Heads featured in Alla's 'The Changing Face of Portraiture’ seminars at the NPG where the technique was shared with other artists and students. In 2010, the work was shown at the Balaklava Odyssey Media Art Festival in the Crimea.

Works:

• Animation 'Pat's Head'
• Animation ' ‘Rocking Madonna’ integrated with electro-acoustic landscape
• Animation '‘Giving Birth Out of Her Head’
• Four animations 'Four heads spin’
• Paintings of the 'texture maps'
• Prints of 3D animation stills
• a 3D print of a  still

Breaking with the conventional 2D representation in art, the ‘Heads’ demonstrate:

• How the production and consumption of representation art can be transformed through digital technology
• How motion-capturing the images of the sitter affects the patterns of engagement and interaction between the artist and its subject
• How new temporal and spatial dynamics (animation and modelling) explore new possibilities for representing the artist’ creative dialogue
• How through the augmented reality technology the work reacts to viewers’ interrogations: viewer controls the animation and audio dimensions of the work by physically exploring the space and instigating motion and audio events.

Techniques explored:

• Traditional technique of oil painting
• High-speed 3D life-size motion-capture and analysis
• 3D digital animation and modelling
• Augmented reality (react-table and motion sensors)

Further explorations include:

• Matching freely painted texture maps and 3D geometry of scanned heads or figures
• Painting a number of pre-selected motion-captioned facial expressions or body movements to create a continued 'life' of a face or a figure
• 3D projection

Exhibited at:

• National Portrait Gallery, London, 2006,  as part of Alla's  ‘The Changing Face of Portraiture’ seminar series
• The Shunt, London, 2007,  as interactive augmented reality exhibition
• Balaklava Odyssey Media Art Festival, Sevastopol, Russia, 2010

Exhibition equipment requires short-throw projection, screen,  computer, infrared lamp and camera, web camera, sound system, and augmented reality equipment.

Heads Spin:

Animation stills

Texture maps

AFRICAN SKETCHES

2007-16