Tania Rivilis (Ukrainian, b. 1986) is a portrait painter whose work examines how identity is shaped by the gaze of others and of oneself.Trained in media design in Moscow, Rivilis took up painting only after moving to Germany in 2012, working mostly on OSB wood panels rather than canvas.,,
Rivilis is self-taught as a painter and works in vivid colors and bold brushstrokes, often in expressive male portraits.,Rivilis has exhibited across Europe and the United States since 2015, showing regularly with Bonnard Galerie in the Netherlands and Arcadia Contemporary in New York since 2019. In 2022 Rivilis won the William Lock Prize from the Royal Society of Portrait Painters in London, and work by Rivilis was included in the “Note to Self” show at Christie's London, curated by Mashonda Tifrere.Rivilis lives and works primarily between Aachen, Germany, and Portugal.,
Commissions by Rivilis include a portrait of Baroness Janet Anne Royall of Blaisdon for Somerville College, Oxford, and a painting of Pamela Mitford for UKTV's “Outrageous” series. Rivilis has also collaborated with actors including Val Kilmer and Mark Gatiss, and work by Rivilis has appeared on billboards in Times Square.
Since 2021 Rivilis has taken part in NFT collaborations, contributing to Poetics, a 19-artist audio and visual collection narrated by the artist Laurence Fuller.,With Fuller, Rivilis created Bird Poetry, built around a poem by Val Kilmer, which entered the Tezos Foundation's permanent collection through an acquisition by Misan Herriman.
