Tanya Alvits

Chianciano Art Museum

Critical Analysis Artist: Tanya Alvits Art Critic: Timothy Warrington

ICAC

International Confederation of Art Critics

Critical Analysis Artist: Tanya Alvits Art Critic: Timothy Warrington

The Museum The Museum of Art of Chianciano hosts a series of collections ranging from Neolithic and Asiatic to Contemporary art.

There are approximately a thousand works on display.

Visitors are able to view paintings and sculptures by artists such as Tom Nash, Salvador Dali, Sir Henry Moore, Frances Turner, Mario Schifano, Damien Hirst, Brian Willsher and Albert Louden, drawings by the likes of Magritte, Guttuso and Munch; historical works from Royal Collections and original etchings by masters such as Dürer and Rembrandt.

The museum is known for organising annual international events, including the Chianciano International Art Award and the Biennale of Chianciano.

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) “Joachim and the Angel” Original woodcut, circa 1504

Sir Henry Moore (1898-1986) “Head” Bronze Sculpture

ICAC

International Confederation of Art Critics

The Critic

Timothy Warrington was born in Birmingham in 1944 and is a critical writer and curator based in London.

Mr. Warrington’s career has taken him all around the world in the search for art to exhibit in London. He was part of the organisation that hosted the largest and most important exposition of Bulgarian art ever curated outside Bulgaria, showing 300 artists. The exhibition was hosted in collaboration with the Bulgarian Embassy in London and was inaugurated by the Bulgarian Ambassador Mr Stancoff.

The Slovenian Printmakers Exhibition was another reminder of the wonderful talent that Timothy brought to London, artists that are recognised and respected all around the world. “Italian Views” at the Lord Leighton Museum, curated by Timothy, was also a great success and a spotlight into contemporary Italian Art from institutions such as the Academy of Fine Art in Florence, Academy of Fiorino in Florence and The Academy of Fine Art in Rome.

Mr Warrington has curated numerous books and writes opinions and exhibition critiques in the UK and the USA. Notably, he was responsible for the main publication related to Brian Willsher’s Bronzes, an artist who taught at the Tate and was praised by Sir Henry Moore as an artistic genius.

Timothy’s critical writing is very sophisticated - he has the power to translate the artist’s thoughts to the viewer with extreme clarity and competence. He was a member of the jury of Chianciano International Art Award alongside people like Gerard Bruneau who started his career wih Andy Warhol.

Heads Up by Tanya Alvits

The Artist

Tanya Alvits was born in 1970 in Copenhagen, Denmark. She grew up in an artistic family; her father performed as a musician at the Royal Opera in Copenhagen and her mother was a violinist and architect. She was artistic from a very young age: Alvits loved drawing, painting, making clay sculptures and practicing music.

However, she put these loves aside and chose to pursue a life as a computer specialist. After an accident, Alvits reevaluated her life and determined that she wanted to have a career helping people, so she became a personal trainer.

In addition to making a career change, she began to pursue her art again and started working as an artist. She is married with two children and is living in the small village Vigersted.

Alvits has been a part of both group and solo exhibitions in her home country Denmark. Additionally, she has exhibited in New York, Hamburg, Berlin, and in Helsingborg, and her art has been presented to the public in different art shows in France and Monaco. She has participated in the VIII Biennale di Firenze in Florence 2011, the Biennale in Chianciano 2013, and the London Biennale 2015.

Alvits is an autodidactic painter who works in both the abstract and the figurative. She feels as though this dichotomy really describes who she is as a person, juxtaposing the organised and the serious with the playful and humorous. The main character in Alvits’ figurative work is the skeleton – the basic structure of the human being. She uses a skeleton for a multitude of reasons. Apart from her love of human anatomy and physiology, one reason is for Alvits’ focus on impermanence, that one day we will die.

Another reason is that she wants to convey that we are all the same when we remove clothing, skin, sex and flesh. The ego is gone. Alvits says, “When I look at a simple bone from the skeleton, I see the most amazing sculpture.”

Forest Dreams I by Tanya Alvits

The Critique Observing Tanya Alvit’s works we have the impression of facing two artists. Two complex personalities, two minds that live both in parallel and interconnecting themselves. But in these works, we can find a common element that unites them both: symbolism. A way of seeing things beyond the classical patterns tied more to a ‘forma mentis’ more than to reality.

In Tanya’s abstract works, she invites us to enter into a world of colour. A world that makes us think, that captures our imagination, that manages to imprison our minds with colour alone. She gives us a message that every viewer can perceive in a totally different way. Messages in which imagination opens the mind to new horizons and new perspectives. Colour is the fundamental element of Tanya’s abstraction. The contrasts and compositions lead us into unknown worlds that we find ourselves wanting to discover.

Tanya also shows another part of herself though, another way of seeing things, of seeing the world and analysing it. The symbol of death par excellence is often depicted in Tanya’s paintings, where death is a synonym of life, and every part of the composition withholds elements of extreme beauty.

In her works we can also see the natural element of the skull connected to objects of everyday use. Both the glasses and Coca-Cola can bind the human mortal element to the real world. Tanya sees a conjunction, a link between these two objects in the same way as Damien Hirst sees reality. In “For the love of God” Damien binds the human element to the power of money and richness. While Tanya binds it more to an everyday matter, to the object per se, of daily use, thus turning her composition into a new and intelligent version of Pop Art. The critic sees a deeper and more intellectual connection to Andy Warhol more than to Damien Hirst, but all these three artists live in the same world, a world of symbols, a world of popular art, and also a world of mystery. Alvits is interesting because she takes us back centuries. “Vanitas” is a recurring theme in History of Art, and it is represented by different objects: skulls, hourglasses, candles, mirrors that underline the precariousness of man. Tanya descends into a deeper world though, more difficult than Andy Warhol’s or Damien Hirst’s ones; but in her subconscious she doesn’t paint the skull as a symbol of death, on the contrary, she sees it as a symbol of the perfection of nature.

In her works there is a refusal of the symbol in itself. A refusal of the transience of man. The connection between life and death is expressed in her paintings in a fascinating and beautiful way.

Timothy Warrington International Confederation of Art Critics

OMG by Tanya Alvits

Scuba Diving by Tanya Alvits

Hat Lover by Tanya Alvits

In the Deep Sea by Tanya Alvits

International Confederation of Art Critics www.international-confederation-art-critics.org