The Custodians

Oil on canvas, Meadow Arts Commission 2012-13

In response to Croft’s renowned collection of portraits, Raabe has chosen to look at the reality of the Castle today. She has focused on the people who care for the place on a day-to-day basis: the staff and volunteers – the current Custodians of Croft.

She created a series of portraits during her 2012 artist’s residency. These involved multiple sittings, which took place in public.  As part of the continuum of history, the finished portraits now hang alongside the Croft family ancestral portraits. Questioning the conventions of displaying paintings, Raabe, who is disabled, has chosen to hang small portraits below the ancestral paintings at a comfortable eye level for wheelchair users.

 

About the artist

Tanya Raabe-Webber

Tanya Raabe-Webber exhibited in Time Will Tell, Croft Castle, 2013, commissioned by Meadow Arts.

Image: Tanya Raabe-Webber, The Custodians. Oil on canvas. Meadow Arts commission 2012-13. Image courtesy Meadow Arts.