ALLA TKACHUK

'THE 20th CENTURY DICTATORS' 

2002-2009

'The 20th Century Dictators' is a series of oil and digital paintings that explore historical figures of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Mao Zedong and Stalin in contemporary context.

Digital paintings are presented as floor-adhesive prints, posters, wallpaper and textile design, billboard, and animation. 

The animation 'Christ is Not an Aryan' was screened on Europe’s largest digital screen in 2007 on top of the Axel Springer Building and was dabbed as “one of three things to see in Berlin” by Bild newspaper (Germany) and BZ Magazine (Germany) at the time of the screening. 

The image of the artists sitting next to her painting 'Siamese Twins' featured as ‘The Image of the Week' in The Times' Art Review.

The paintings of the dictators as full figures were published in the literary magazine Der Freund (Germany) in December 2005.

Alla was named the 'Critic's Choice' by Saatchi Online for the series in 2007. 

The whole series is composed of these artworks:

• Full length life-size paintings of naked Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Stalin, and Franco, oil on wood
• Heads, floor-adhesive prints
• Torsos, posters
• 'Limb Compositions', prints
• Dictators TM, 48-sheet billboard print
  
• 'Group Portrait', oil on paper mounted on mdf board
• ‘Christ is not an Aryan’ animation
• Double portraits of Hitler/Stalin, ‘Siamese Twins’ and 'They have not stopped dancing yet', oil on wood
  

• Merchandise items include umbrella, pillow cover, a set of 2 kitchen towels, mug, coasters, silk handkerchief, clutch bag, iphone case.

The series' artworks are exhibited in these 7 environs:

• Environ 1: Full length life-size paintings of naked Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Stalin, and  Franco
• Environ 2: ‘Heads’, as floor-adhesive vinyl prints, and 48-sheet billboard 'Dictators TM’
• Environ 3: ‘Torsos’, posters
• Environ 4: 'Limbs Composition' prints accompanied by 'organic sounds' activated by motion-sensing technology
• Environ 5:  'Group Portrait' wallpaper, which covers the walls of this environ space, and animation ‘Christ is not an Aryan’
• Environ 6.  Double portraits
• Environ 7: 'Memorabilia Shop' - a series of merchandise items exhibited at the end of the show intended for audience to ‘buy into the dictators’. 

The series has been exhibited at Crone Gallery in Berlin, and on Europe's largest digital screen on top of the Axel Springer Building, Berlin in 2005-2007.

Environ 1. Naked Hitler, Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Stalin, and  Franco

Environ 2. ‘Heads’ and 'Dictators TM’

• Environ 3 ‘Torsos’

Environ 4. 'Limb composites'

Environ 5

This environ consist of two works: 'Group Portrait' wallpaper, and the digital animation ‘Jesus is not an Aryan’.

Environ 6. Double portraits

Environ 7: 'Memorabilia'

PRINCE CHARLES SERIES

2001-02

The portrait series of Prince Charles was created 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.

'5D INSTIGATIVE HEADS' SERIES

2004-08

‘5D Instigative Heads’ is a pioneering experimental work that transforms the production and consumption of representational art through digital technologies. The ‘Heads’ are 3D scans of facial expressions painted in oil (texture maps) and then digitally merged, moulded and deformed in space and time (3D modelling and animation), integrated with electro-acoustic landscapes and augmented reality, printed in 3D and projected.

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

OPERA PORTRAITS

2003-17

These paintings of the world-renowned opera singers depict them in roles in Royal Opera productions:

Sir John Tomlinson - as Boris Godunov, Boris Ismailov, Méphistophélès, Hagen, Hunding, and Asterious

Dmitri Hvorostovsky - as Onegin

Sir Bryn Terfel - as Wotan

Dame Felicity Lott - as the Marschallin

Angela Gheorghiu - as Magda

Sir Willard White - as Coppélius

Sir Thomas Allen - as Alfonzo

Jose Cura - as Samson

Marcelo Alvarez - as Werther

Created from life, the images portray the singers while they portray their characters on stage.  These are the representations by both, an artist working in the visual fine art medium and the artists working in the medium of opera singing.

Sir Bryn Terfel: “Wow. 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, Royal Opera House Shop, and Russian Culture House in London

AFRICAN SKETCHES

2007-16

CHILDREN