Tankateo

BEHIND THE PENCIL
Tankateo is a French visual artist who moved to Australia in 2010. She had no idea she will still be here 8 years later. She studied in the South of France where she learned academic drawing bases and experimented diverse mediums and supports. She got into a Graphic Design School in 2002, it opened her to a technical approach of creation. The ability to fuse computer design with a fallible human hand.
We are in 2010 when Tankateo starts her travel with her ‘funny’ English and her compact Canon camera. New faces, new people, new shapes, everything seems brighter, larger. This experience gave her desire and reason to get back into an active art practice. “I search emotions the face exudes, I look for the story behind the eye.”

Tankateo's Art is often qualified of colorful and quirky, she loves to create characters, paint portraits on a multitude of surfaces including frames and wooden furniture. The beginning of the creation starts by searching the right support, from second-hand shops to recycling centers. Her characters are often tough, sometimes almost vulnerable. They aren't caricatures, they are Tankateo's interpretation of emotions and expressions. “They could be interpreted as self-portraits."

Her style is a mix of ink, acrylic and black pen. She claims that her impulsive temperament sometimes clashes with the time and patience needed to develop any academic technique such as oil paint. Tankateo uses wooden furniture as canvas but also tin boxes, wooden board, cardboard. Playing with a little bit of everything is what makes her work unique, her husband Robert likes to joke about her, owning more tools than himself.
Since 2014, Tankateo illustrates one deck of playing cards a year and publishes it as a limited edition of a hundred. She believes it shows a desire to blend practicality and aesthetics.

2016 and 2017 marked the beginning of public events, murals around Perth and collaborations with different local Artists. She likes to showcase her artworks in various places such as artisan markets, bars, where she says ' I can reach people who were not supposed to be there and make smile those who didn't expect me to be there'.

2018 seems to be the year of maturity filled with challenging commissions and school workshops.