Revealing Culture: Head On

Who'S WhO – Defining Faces of an Arts Movement

Who'S WhO is a collection of portraits created by Tanya Raabe Visual Artist. The portraits challenge the notion of portraiture using disability aesthetics and visual language. The portraits are of established and new emerging disabled artists who have and continue to pioneer disability arts and culture in a society that uses perfection, beauty, and normality as a ‘must have'.

Each artist has been chosen because of their influence in shaping disability art as an arts movement in its own right and have in some way shaped the art work of leading disabled artist Tanya Raabe. Another aspect of the project was Multimedia Portraits which combines the production and working processes of the paintings and drawings in transition with sound, vision and text, hearing each artist talking about their history of art and their working processes. Studio Talks contextualises the subjects juxtaposing their position in a challenging society exploring disability art and culture.

Who'S WhO exhibition history & portraits

Shape London : 12th November 09 - January 31st 2010.

27a Access Artspace: 20th July - 10th September 2009.

Solihull Arts Complex: 25th May - 5th July 2009.

Oriel Wrecsam / Wrexham Arts Centre: 7th March -18th April 2009.

National Portrait Gallery; Meet The Artists: 23rd March 2009.

Qube Gallery Oswestry: 2nd February - 28th February 2009.

The Place Theatre Telford: 18th October - 20th November 2008.

DaDaFest International 08 at the A Foundation Liverpool: 18th August - 7th September 2008.

Beaumont College Arts Festival: 7th - 11th July 2008

Who'S WhO Exhibition Launch 15th March 2008 - 19th May 2008

Dr Paul Darke

Artist/Writer/Cultural Critic. Paul is recognised for his frankness about the state of disability arts and for his historical exploration of disability representation in film. Paul has been developing his own artwork using the internet since 2000. www.outside-centre.com "Its guerrilla art from a disability art perspective."

Mat Fraser

Actor/Performance Artist/Singer/Songwriter/Playwright. Mat is recognised as an actor in the mainstream and for being an ambassador of the representation of disabled people in the media while causing controversial disability arts debate within disability culture, and for being born disabled but not ‘coming out' as a disabled person until he was in his 30's. www.matfraser.co.uk

Colin Hambrook

Painter/Disability Arts Writer . Colin is recognised for his paintings about his experience as a disabled man and mental health system survivor. His paintings are part of the NDACA National Disability Arts Collection and Archive, at Holton Lee. Colin is presently the artistic director of www.disabilityarts.org a contemporary cyber space keeping alive and developing disability arts into the 21st century.

Tony Heaton

Sculptor/pioneer of NDACA, National Disability Arts Collection and Archive at Holton Lee.Tony is recognised for being a Sculptor in his own right and for his work at Holton Lee, setting up Faith House art gallery, accessible studio spaces, NDACA and campaigning for disability art to be recognized as an arts movement in its own right.

Nikki Hewish

Deaf Artist – Installation Artist. Nikki is an emerging deaf artist in the early stages of her career exploring her ideas about the world around her using sculptural material to create installations.

Dave King

3D Fantasy Digital Artist. David has a background in science and delves into the realm of 3D computer graphics utilizing the useful metamorphosis of mathematics to produce imagery. "My work intends to deliver the potency of using digital techniques to produce art by using structure and shape to employ techniques of object and anatomical construction"

Julie McNamara

Singer/Songwriter/Playwright/Raconteur/Activist. Julie is recognized for her amazing stories about her experiences as a disabled woman/mental health system survivor that she has interpreted into performance/plays/songs that have given others the will to live, and for being ‘cured' of her disabilities by the ‘medical profession'. www.juliemc.com

Zoe Partington – Sollinger

Installation Artist/Disability Arts Consultant Zoe is recognized for her work in equality training and is emerging as a disabled artist in her own right creating conceptual installations based on her experiences as a disabled woman in a disabling world.

Allan Sutherland

Writer/Playwright/Performance poet. Allan is recognized for his "love of words", his radio play 'Inmates', and as the author of ‘Disabled We Stand' a book exploring disability culture and identity that has been a 'light bulb' for people to identify them selves as disabled people and for The Edward Lear Foundation an established Disability Arts think-tank on the internet. www.learfoundation.org.uk

Who'S WhO was funded by Arts Council England