Image: Tina Takako Prentis
Tina Tanako Prentis joins Artists at Home 2024
Artists at Home 2024 takes place in less than a month, over the weekend of Friday 14 -Sunday 16 June, when around 100 local artists will be opening their homes to invite visitors in to see their work.
From painters to sculptors, photographers to ceramicists, the event offers art enthusiasts the opportunity to explore a diverse range of artistic talents within their own neighbourhood.
This year, Tina Takako Prentis is one of the new members showing her work at the open studios. Originally from Japan, Tina uses art as a means of expression that she feels her words cannot fully convey, presenting vivid abstract paintings which she says “challenge conventional expectations”.
Image: ‘Life Goes on’
Having moved to Chiswick less than a year ago, Tina told me she was eager to take part in Artists At Home as a way of getting to know her neighbours and connecting her with other local creatives, “… And hopefully I sell something!”
Before she developed her abstract style over the last three to four years, Tina painted figurative pieces including still life, landscapes and portraits. But now she says her work has evolved.
“What I’m trying to depict now is the inner self, the inner self of humans or the human mind. I’m interested in psychology and philosophy and I tend to paint what comes up in my thoughts, my feelings, onto the canvas… Sometimes I force myself to go in front of the canvas and pick one particular colour and from there it just evolves.”
Image: ‘Feast of Red’
“I can express myself fully in art”
Tina is inspired by the works of abstract artists including British artist Frank Bowling. His 2019 exhibition in Tate Britain showcased some of his most famous works including Barticaborn, which explores themes of identity, journeys and abstraction with its use of a stencilled outline of Africa, layered with acrylics, spray paints and oil wax on canvas.
The exhibition helped to set Tina her down her current path of creating abstract art.
“I really loved his work and I wanted to be able to paint like he does, basically.”
Image: ‘Summer Heat (Emotion)
Like Bowling, Tina is of mixed heritage – having moved to London from Okinawa, which is the smallest and least populated of the five main islands of Japan.
Her family have also inspired her artwork too. Her sister, who still lives in Okinawa, is also an abstract painter who has won over 20 awards for her work. Their father, who worked as a medical doctor, always wanted to go to art school to become a painter by profession.
“But his father said, you cannot. You have to become a doctor. But he painted throughout his life as well, so art is in the family.”
Tina said she was both excited and nervous to display her work to the public during Artists at Home. She considers her art to be her primary means of true expression, so each piece feels very dear to her. She hopes visitors appreciate the colour arrangements and compositions of her work, or better still if they are “emotionally touched” by particular paintings.
“I speak English with a Japanese accent. Clearly this is not my native language, I cannot express myself using English language – but I can fully express myself in art. My husband is a writer, he is from here and it’s his native language. He’s written a book. So he goes for words, I go for paintings.”
Image: Studio 29
Where to find Tina
Tina is based in Studio 29, on Merton Avenue which is a short walk from Chiswick Cinema.
The nearest Tube stations are Turnham Green and Stamford Brook and various buses along Chiswick High Road stop nearby.
You can find more of Tina’s work on her website or at artistsathome.co.uk
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