Tanya Raabe Visual Artist

My projects celebrate diversity of ability and approach that work with the social model of disability. My philosophy is one of access to art on all levels including breaking down the intellectualising of art processes and education so that all artists can create and develop artistic skills on their own terms to a high standard. I work towards getting disability art recognised as a valued artform in its own right.

All art work viewed on this page is by the artists themselves.

Art Matters

Art Matters is a unique arts initiative, run by NCH in partnership with business advisers Ernst & Young.

A programme of practical art workshops, art education training and gallery tours are run in conjunction with a major London gallery, enabling young people to create their own masterpieces.

I worked with young people at Birmingham Children's Community Centre, Winston Green-Birmingham, in October 2004 to create pictures inspired by their immediate surrounding in the style of Turner Whistler Monet.

The artwork created by the young people was exhibited on an interactive media board in the foyer of Tate Britain. This art supported the Turner Whistler Monet exhibition at Tate Britain.

“... our talent that has been hidden away now it has come out. I can paint with different shades”
Quote from Taloshan Dosanth a participant in Art Matters.

Details of three images describing the lanscape of Birmingham by Art Matters artists, building, sun, trees.

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Arts 4 Health Conference

As an artist in residence at south Staffordshire Healthcare NHS trust Arts for Health I was commissioned to document the themes and events of the day using reportage drawing techniques. The drawing and sketches I made were digitally developed and used to illustrate the evaluation.

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Arty Party

Arty Party is a user lead arts group of learning disabled artists. Their philosophy is to make art while having a party at the same time. Arty Party is based in Telford and have been making art and partying for over five years.

Fruit Family Album

Arty Party's visual artists developed their drawing and observational skills by exploring fruit like you've never seen before as well as exploring their human form through life drawing. The artists' work was Arty Party's first exhibition and was exhibited at Oakengates Theatre in Telford. They celebrated with an arty party which was created in partnership with Salamander Tandem. The drawing workshops were lead by me and I was also the curator for their exhibition. We are working towards making more visual art together.

Details of drawings: face with circles, pink pomegranate, three people, created by Arty Party.

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Visual Art Workshops

Arty Party artists wanted to find ways of developing their drawing and painting skills as well as discovering techniques that could be used to celebrate Arty Party as a whole. So we created drawings on acetate and then projected them onto large canvases. The final works were created to explore themes of self identity. Together we put together a catalogue brochure that explored ‘who is arty party and what we do'. The artwork below was used in the catalogue.

Details of drawings: face, bird in a cage, faces created by Arty Party.

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Creative Partnerships

I was employed by Craftspace Touring and Creative Partnerships to work with pupils of Wilson Stuart school Birmingham on a project called ‘Outside Inside'. The project used digital manipulation to explore ideas around self image in their playground areas outside and to come up with sculptural concepts for building interactive objects to make in the grounds of the school.

Details of drawings showing imagined sculptures in photographic locations, black shape and dots on a tennis court, blurred head in a green plastic collar in front of trees, black and white hand in front of trees.

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Moving Beyond

‘Moving Beyond' An exhibition I curated at the Custard Factory, Birmingham. This exhibition brought together professional, emerging, and amateur disabled artists in the west midlands and provided a platform of workshops and seminars that began a chain of discussions around the profiling of disability art in the mainstream.

Details from three photographs, an art gallery wall with pictures and plinths, a free hanging model of a man sitting in a picture frame, model heads on pillars.

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NCH Leisure Consultancy

With disabled young people of Birmingham's Children Community Centre I used visual art techniques and processes to explore what they wanted to do with their free time. I used their artwork as images to accompany a consultancy document that the centre is using to support funding applications which will hopefully realise the group's dreams.

Details of young students work, a flat clay figure, a drawing of a purple head, a drawing of a house on a red background.

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