Tania Rivilis

⚠️ Exclusive preview 🤩

Pensive man in a straw hat.
Oil on canvas
100 x 100 cm

By Tania Rivilis

As subject, Tania chose a famous painting by Vincent van Gogh, a Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat titled “obverse: The Potato Peeler” which serves as both spark and origin.

Tania wanted to carry over not only the summer palette and the sweeping, unrestrained brushstrokes that seem to follow the form rather than simply cover it, but also the pensive gaze, the faint melancholy, and the sense of a body slightly withdrawn from the surrounding noise and movement.

Beneath this painting lies an earlier, unsuccessful attempt—a reworked image that never quite resolved itself. Tania likes feeling its presence under the surface, this “error” that, much like in the spirit of kintsugi, becomes not a defect but a unique trace of the process, a fracture that quietly enriches the life of the portrait.

This work will together with 7 others be part of our new group show “Constructed Realities”,

The show opens Saturday the 20th. from 12 - 2 pm.

Did you see the story we shared from the National Portrait Gallery?

We are thrilled to celebrate that a portrait by Tania Rivilis has been selected for the cover of the National Portrait Gallery’s latest catalogue.

The painting shown here, **”Singularity,”** currently available in our gallery, was created during the same period. You can clearly recognize the artistic language, atmosphere, and distinctive style that make Tania’s work so captivating.

We are incredibly proud of you, Tania. Congratulations on this wonderful achievement! 👏🎉

Tania Rivilis
Singularity
65 × 95 cm
Oil on canvas

Few spots are available for my upcoming workshop in Florence in September 💛

My painting «Almost Real» will be displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in London this summer/fall 🖤
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It was selected for the Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Portrait Award 2026 — one of the most important portrait competitions in the world. The exhibition opens 25 June and I honestly can’t believe I’m typing these words right now.
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This year there were 1,474 entries from 63 countries. Forty thousand works have passed through this competition since it began. Six million people have seen it. And somewhere in all of that — Almost Real found its place.
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I’ve been sitting with this news for a bit before sharing it. Not because I wasn’t excited — I was completely overwhelmed — but because I wanted to feel it fully before I let it out. This is, without exaggeration, my biggest news this year..
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See you in London this summer
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npg.org.uk — HSF Kramer Portrait Award 2026
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