Tanja Gant, Queen in Training I, charcoal, 14 x 17.
One day not long ago, artist Tanja Gant grabbed her camera and headed over to an art league near her home in Hawkins, TX, east of Dallas. The league, which periodically organizes photo shoots for local artists, had assembled a troupe of young female dancers. Upon arriving, Gant couldn’t help noticing one girl in particular who carried herself with marked poise. Intuitively, she started snapping pictures of the girl. “You know how you meet people sometimes who just radiate energy?” says Gant. “She is one of those people. She didn’t have to say anything—she just had that presence.”
When she returned home, the artist examined her images and identified the snapshot that inspired her winning entry: a luminous portrait of the dancer executed in photorealistic detail. Though Gant often works in colored pencil, she settled on charcoal for QUEEN IN TRAINING I because, she notes, “I decided the biggest impact would be in black and white.”
Gant, a Bosnian native, began drawing at a young age, first rendering cartoon characters and then graduating to portraits of people she saw in magazines. Once she realized she could make her drawings look real, she says, “I was hooked.” Today the self-taught artist still enjoys creating convincingly lifelike portraits, but in each drawing she tackles, she also explores unique angles and perspectives. “I find everything else boring—I’ve seen it a million times,” she chuckles. So, adds Gant, “I try to do my own thing. I’m trying to figure out what I’m trying to say.”
Of course, for the artist, her portraits are ultimately about the people she meets and their unique attributes. “I really believe everybody is special and has that ‘something,’” she says. Find Gant’s work at www.tanjagant.com.
This story appeared in the December 2020/January 2021 issue of Southwest Art magazine.