Tanya Tull is a Los Angeles-based artist and social entrepreneur who received her BFA from Scripps College, Claremont, in 1964. There she studied with Phil Dike, Jean Goodwin Ames, Paul Darrow, and Douglas McCellan (who later developed the Art Department at UC Santa Cruz). 

Married and raising three children in the 1970s, Tanya continued to paint. Her life took a sharp turn in 1980, however, after reading an article in the LA Times about children living in Skid Row hotels. Within weeks she had incorporated a nonprofit organization, Para Los Niños (For the Children), intending to work for a year as a volunteer to see it open – and then go home. At the same time, the new arts community in Downtown LA had begun to take hold as artists moved into studio lofts in converted warehouses. Tanya subleased a large art studio nearby and began painting on weekends, while working at Para Los Niños during the week. 

Based in LA’s Skid Row almost seven days a week, Tanya found herself with a “front row seat” as homeless people – including families with children – began appearing on the city streets. Unable to turn away, Tanya co-founded LA Family Housing in 1983 to develop housing and emergency shelters. In 1988, she founded both A Community of Friends (to develop permanent housing for the homeless mentally ill) and Beyond Shelter (to help families move from shelters into housing). Tanya then worked nationally over the next 25 years, helping to promote systemic change on a national scale. 

Tanya firmly believes that it was her ability to “color outside the lines” that enabled her to apply her creative skills to social problems. She compares it to an abstract painting that isn’t resolved but has the elements to envision in a new way. Today, she is painting prolifically again full-time. Her work is replete with riotous color, shapes that keep changing as each piece evolves – and with layers of underpainting often showing through. Tanya is particularly proud of her artist son, Dani Tull (MFA Stanford), who shows both nationally and internationally and co-founded the Highland Park art gallery Odd Ark LA.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Years ago, I painted large abstract canvases. That art has been slow to come back. What I have experienced instead is a steady movement forward, grateful that I have time at this point in my life to paint again.

I immerse myself daily in riotous color and changing shapes, as I regain skills I thought lost and remember the use of color, space, and composition. When I paint, I enter a world in which nothing else exists except the process… each moment is a private conversation between me and the canvas – with shapes and colors emerging that often surprise me. Each stroke is a new moment in time – some of which will remain memorialized on the canvas when I am done. At the same time, much will be painted over and simply gone. But to know that it was once there is often enough.

Because I did not lift a brush for decades while away from my art, squeezing paint to palate, putting brush to paint and then paint to canvas, has been replete with the full range of emotions. No, it doesn’t come back immediately – and it is absolutely NOT like riding a bike!

Many of my paintings represent to me the primordial essence and timelessness of the natural environment around us that continues to exist in spite of us. Seemingly quiet and peaceful from afar, a closer look reveals the “wild things” hidden within. Simultaneously, they represent the documentation and subtle integration of diverse human emotions and life experiences. .