SOLO EXHIBITION
SOLO EXHIBITION
SOLO EXHIBITION
The World's Leading Contemporary Fine Art Gallery
_PNG.png){kind=small}
The World's Leading Contemporary Fine Art Gallery
Tafy
LaPlanche
UNITED STATES
_p.png)
“By creating portraits, I communicate an entire story about someone without having to say a single word.”
Tafy LaPlanche is an Afro-Latina portrait artist based in New York City and Savannah, Georgia. She paints dope and vibrant portraits for dope and vibrant people!
This was the first painting of my "Las Frutas" series. She is the embodiment of the souls of my fellow women of color, celebrating our beauty, boldness, strength, endurance, vibrancy, and so much more. It's about how we keep pushing forward despite everything.
Born and raised in NYC, Tafy was always surrounded by diversity. It made her curious about other cultures and people’s heritages. This upbringing prompted her to travel to meet all kinds of people. and made her passionate about showcasing that in her art.
I’ve always admired my fellow Puerto Rican sister for her immense individuality. She’s a woman of many looks but never strays from who she is on the inside and embraces her natural beauty. It truly was an honor to paint someone with such vibrance. This portrait serves as a reminder that you can be viewed differently by many people; do not allow that to change your view of yourself. The dragon fruits represent our first meal together when we visited our roots in San Juan.
Being both Puerto Rican and Haitian, throughout her life people always tried to place her in a box of one or the other. With her portraits, she showcases unique individuals who embrace both their culture and who they are outside of it. She also questions society's beauty standards, which is a constant theme in her work.
"The uniqueness of my portraits lies in the fact that they showcase unique individuals who embrace both their culture and who they are outside of it."
At the age of thirteen, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. She was considered one of the older patients and did not have priority over the Nintendo 64. She was given paper and a pen instead. Her days at the hospital were filled with drawing people as they passed by her room. This prompted her mother to enroll her in an art school. However, she was placed in a school where they only spoke Mandarin! There she learned to draw portraits and paint landscapes. Despite the language barrier, she realized that art in itself was a universal language.
"My identity isn't limited to just my culture. I am the culture and so much more, all at the same time."
As someone of Haitian descent, many showed interest in her art skills and wanted to see her as a Haitian painter. The pressure to be someone slowly made her dislike painting landscapes despite her skills in it. During pre-college, she went abroad to Tuscany for a change of scenery. It was here, when she had her canvas and paints out, overlooking a stunning landscape, that the sound of buzzing surrounded her. Moments later she realized she got stung by a bee because she couldn’t see out of one eye. She was allergic! Her eyelid had blown up.
Vulnerability is sometimes viewed as an undesirable trait in a man, to define him as weak. When I found my muse for this painting (a young man with vitiligo), I found that we not only get judged for not being strong but also solely based on our skin. I find that there is such immense beauty in accepting your vulnerability and the skin you live in. This challenges the viewer to consider what true beauty really means and how we can find strength within that meaning.
“It’s one thing to capture someone’s likeness, but my goal has always been centered around how one perceives someone versus how they perceive themselves.”
As you look at the portrait and take it in, the subject looks back at you and questions society's view on beauty. The golden foil around her represents that no matter what, she is beautiful inside and out, and that radiates from her. The pawpaw fruit serves as a reminder to move away from scarcity (the parts of life that deplete you) and toward abundance (the things in life that energize you).
An old Italian woman came to the hill where she was and offered Tafy a ride to her home to remedy the bee sting by placing an onion over her eye. Naive and hopeful, she followed. As Tafy watched the woman interact with her family and go about her daily tasks, she realized her passion for telling people’s stories through portraiture. By creating portraits, she could communicate an entire story about someone without having to say a word and to connect despite where we may come from.
Women are often told not to come across as intimidating. To downplay their strengths and not be so bold. When I was painting this, I said, "F*** that!" Being unapologetically yourself is the energy I gave to this portrait. It's okay to be your badass self. I hope that this painting helps the viewer feel as confident as she is. I added papayas to the background to dare everyone to be as bold as they are.
Every person that is portrayed in her portraits starts with their story. It’s one thing to capture someone’s likeness, but her goal is centered around how one perceives someone versus how they perceive themselves. Based on the energy and vibe she gets from her subject, she selects her palette using color symbolism. This helps the viewer gain insight into who the person is on the inside.
My mom hadn’t been to Puerto Rico since I was born. So when I brought her back to where she was born, all she wanted was Mofongo for breakfast. However, everywhere we went, they said that they made it for lunch due to the prep time. Finally, a hole in the wall welcomed us in and made it for us. In addition, they made us some fresh guava paste and fried cheese. And for that, I will always refer to my fellow Puerto Ricans as "my sweet people."
As a portrait artist, she takes her time to get to know the person for whom she is creating a portrait. She asks a series of questions beforehand and throughout to ensure she is invoking who they are in her work. She selects themes from the conversation and incorporates them into the portrait. She asks questions regarding their connection to their culture. what people expect them to be. And how they’ve dealt with that in their way. With her current collection, "Las Frutas," she adds tropical fruits to the background, which relates to the specific person being portrayed. Due to her Caribbean background, adding tropical fruits is also a way of putting herself into the work as the artist.
A Sateré-Mawé couple wanted to have a child. After making a request to Tup, their wish was granted. The boy's goodness and generosity threatened the deity of the wicked. Envying the young man, Jurupari became a venomous snake and killed him. The mother buried her son's eyes in the ground. In the place where his eyes were, plants were born that gave fruits that looked like the eyes of the boy.
"For me, taking the time to get to know my subjects well beforehand guarantees that I am able to incorporate their individual characters in my portraits."
The noses of indigenous people and people of color are sometimes viewed as weird. I tend to find wide noses that are long and sharp to be beautiful. I wanted to illustrate a piece challenging those beauty standards and highlight them. The piece is surrounded by graphic plants to represent a sense of serenity.
After doing a light sketch of her portraits, Tafy uses contour outlines to determine the darkest shadows, highlights, and mid-tones. The look of this process has fascinated her over the years, and she decided to use the graphic appearance of those lines in her final rendition when she paints. This allows her to break away from her traditional skills mindset and let her creativity control where the work goes.
Growing up in the 90s, when hip hop and R&B were on the rise, having a grill was often shown as a sign of wealth and being cool. As a young kid in school, I obviously didn’t have money for gold or diamond-plated fronts. So my friends and I would take the wrappers from gum and fix them to our teeth! This piece shows what it is to try to be cool at a young age and to show off.
When people see her paintings, Tafy hopes that the viewer can feel like they too can be their unapologetically beautiful selves and that, as an artist, she can reflect joy and strength in a single portrait. All she wants is to have each of her portraits be able to connect in some way with its viewers.
A charcoal portrait study.