ALLA TKACHUK

TESTIMONIALS

Professor Jacqueline Rose, 2006
(Professor of Humanities, Humanities and Social Sciences Institutes and Research Centres, Co-Director, Birkbeck Institute of Humanities, Co-Director of the London Critical Theory Summer School, Birkbeck Institute of Humanities, former University of London)

‘Alla Tkachuk’s ‘Dictators’ images are powerful, disturbing, and visceral. They go straight to the heart of some of the most urgent political questions of modern times – the relationship between power and the body, the denial of mortality in the cult of the hero, and the role of shame and humiliation in constructing the most dangerously fortified political identities. Tkachuk is increasingly establishing herself as an original and significant artist of international stature whose work takes the role of portraiture in modern culture to a new, self-conscious, and critical dimension.’

Lord Andrew Roberts, 2005

(FRSL FRHistS, English historian, journalist, and member of the House of Lords)

‘Alla Tkachuk’s paintings successfully explore the fascinating dichotomies and paradoxes that lie at the heart of totalitarian systems. They can be seen as the artistic counterpart to the contributions of thinkers, historians, and writers such as Professor Lord Bullock, Richard Overy, Michael Burleigh, and Alain Besançon. One can hardly have a finer intellectual pedigree than that.’

(Extract from the introduction to 'The 20th Century Dictators' series)

Professor Seán McConville, 2006
(BSc (Bath), PhD (Cantab), LLD (Cantab), JP. Professor of Law and Public Policy, University of London)

‘The Twentieth Century Dictators’ offered a seductive, novel, and wholly malign passage from the private to the public psyche. Alla Tkachuk’s iconographies, individually and collectively, dissect that process, dwelling on the fetishism of the image, fantasies of cruelty, and – inevitably and always – the nihilistic denial of the human element. In times of commercial and celebrity-fueled politics, this is compelling and cautionary work.’

Professor Sir Richard Brook, 2006
(Director of The Leverhulme Trust)

‘Alla Tkachuk combines the finest artistic proficiency with a determined courtesy to question conventions; hidden connections, viewpoints, paradoxes, and assumptions are then revealed. The power of art to open new patterns of understanding and debate is triumphantly evident in the ‘Dictators’ series. The affection for the artist and the respect for her work now so apparent at the College bear witness to the influence which the series has had on this diverse and articulate community.’

Sir Bryn Terfel, 2012

(CBE, world-renowned Welsh bass-baritone opera and concert singer)

‘The portrait looks fabulous. I love it. And it is exactly what I did on the stage. Thanks for that.’

Sir John Tomlinson, 2017
(CBE, world-renowned English operatic bass)

‘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, 2006
(CBE FRCM, world-renowned English operatic baritone)

‘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. Bravo.’

Exhibitions

Press

Artwork