TABITHA SALMON

An Introduction

Tabitha Salmon is a widely-acclaimed artist working in the figurative tradition whose paintings are remarkable for their colour, energy and impact. Private collectors and public and commercial institutions consider her to be one of the outstanding British artists of her generation.

Tabitha was born in 1955 in Kent, studied at Brighton and Camberwell Colleges of Art, and has been a professional painter for thirty years. During this time she has become much-travelled, an artist who responds with characteristic enthusiasm to new places and cultures. She is always drawing, and develops her images using multi-disciplinary media – oils, watercolours, gouache, oil pastel and gold leaf.

Over the years Tabitha’s work has evolved from her reportage projects of the 1980s – such as a ground-breaking visit to Perestroika-era Moscow to draw scenes of Soviet life – and moved on to a more personal and contemplative celebration of environments and individuals.

Tabitha is stimulated in particular by cities that put on a show, such as theatrical Naples, and her explorations of its chaotic streets have provided endless inspiration. She will revisit a place she finds “special”: Seville, for example, where the tight discipline of riders and horses at its Feria expresses the intense pride of Andalucia.

In contrast, Tabitha regularly goes people-watching at Deauville’s chic race course and along its flirtatious Promenade des Planches. Eventually, she took on the ultimate challenge – Venice – and by concentrating on the unique form of the gondola captured the elegance of la Serenissima perfectly.

Wherever she has been travelling, the sketches and studies made on the spot are brought home to her London studio. There Tabitha can contemplate the material with total freedom and make it her own: “Putting all that distance between you and a place,” she says “...it does become like a dream, a sort of vision”.

She has also found inspiration in heavyweight industrial subjects, such as prestige City projects and new suspension bridges, all of which demand a choreography of men, skills and machines. A head for heights and ability to work in the toughest conditions were required for a series of commissions from international construction and engineering firms. Tabitha exhibited her work from the Lloyd’s Building in London, the Channel Tunnel and Hong Kong’s Tsing Ma Bridge – and a sumptuous collection of images of 1930s architecture in Britain was completed for the Building Centre in London.

Biography

A comprehensively-illustrated book – Tabitha Salmon by Simon Gooch, 2005 – tells the highly entertaining story of the painter’s adventurous creative life, from midwinter Moscow to tumultuous Naples, from bears and acrobats at the Russian circus to the Spanish corrida.

All of this rich artistic experience has provided Tabitha with a catalogue of themes and a formidable body of work which she now draws on for more personal and iconic images. She says she is happiest when she can “revisit places in my mind’s eye... that’s what I find very liberating...”

A major retrospective of Tabitha Salmon’s work will be held in Cork Street, London, in November 2008.