My latest painting, Exaltation (2021), depicts the tragic ballerina, Tanaquil Leclerq. She was born in Paris to a French father and an American mother. Subsequently, she grew up in New York.
At the age of 12, she obtained a scholarship to a dance school. Several years later, she was dancing for famed choreographer, George Balanchine. They later married when Tanaquil was 23.
One of her first roles for Balanchine was as a polio stricken girl. Ultimately, this foreshadowed her future affliction. Exaltation (2021) shows the importance of vaccinations.
The Power and the Ecstasy
In 1956, Tanaquil contracted polio while touring Denmark as a principal dancer for the New York City Ballet Company. This resulted in her being permanently paralysed from the waist down. She never danced again. I was inspired to paint Exaltation (2021) after seeing several stills of Tanaquil before polio struck.
I found her simultaneously powerful and elegant. As a ballerina, she possessed an admixture of grace, beauty and determination. Tanaquil expressed herself corporeally and it was this that I wanted to capture in my painting. Similarly, I painted famous ballerina, Anna Pavlova in Anna (2017). I also focused my attention on the body in The Waiting Game (2020).
In order to explore the space between the figures, I chose a relatively large canvas. It was my aim to show the balance of masculine and feminine energy. This was also the aim of my painting, The Kiss (2020). The scene is from the ‘Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun’. This was based on a Debussy poem. Here, Jacques d’Amboise lifts Tanaquil into the air. For me, this evinced the beauty of the human form in complete exaltation.
Exaltation (2021) embodies the trust that exists between partners, in ballet or otherwise. It also serves as a reminder of the importance of vaccinations. The result is a painting that shows enlightenment through the physical form and captures an exquisite moment in time.