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Tatia Starkey
Tatia Starkey is a UK-based contemporary abstract and photographic artist, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter. She began painting in 2023, using body-based imprint techniques with acrylic paint to create expressive, organic forms.
Raised in a family of internationally recognised musicians, she was immersed in music from an early age. She continues to write and record her own material as Vada Paint and is the bass guitarist for My Vitriol. She was co-creator of the band Belakiss, recorded on Lola Colt’s studio album, produced by Jim Sclavunos, and has
performed with Zak Starkey’s band, Penguins Rising. Her broader background includes work as a dancer and performing artist, and she is the founder of the organic skin and body care brand The Holistic Witch.
Her photographic works have been sold through The Circle Gallery. She also created the artwork for Sanctum on The Green hotel and restaurant, and will exhibit with Kaizen Fine Art in June/July 2026.
Artist Statement
Tatia’s work centres on using the body as a paintbrush and medium. Her unconventional upbringing meant she grew up around constant change, movement, and sound, which now shapes how she creates, carrying that same sense of rhythm and emotional intensity.
She began painting during a period of introspection and personal transition, when she remembered an image she had connected with almost 20 years earlier, a photograph of a couple sprawled across a canvas, intertwined and soaked in paint. That image pushed her to explore how the naked body can express not just sensuality, but lust, anger, pure joy, and torment.
Her early work as a dancer and musician influenced her use of physical form to create an atmosphere that blurs the line between performance and painting. Her process begins with layering the canvas using a methodical Jackson Pollock approach, building up the structure before bringing her body into the work. Covering herself in acrylic paint, she works directly onto the canvas, creating a physical imprint. The process becomes a way of confronting and translating raw emotion through the body. She works while listening to her music, channeling it
into the process. It can be controlled or chaotic, but it is always physical.
Her photographic work dismantles images of the human form through colour, manipulation, and distortion, transforming them into surreal, metamorphic figures that symbolize shape-shifting identity and altered states of being.
The work is led entirely by instinct, unfolding without a set path and revealing itself through the process. Each piece captures a static mark, fixed at a single point in time. It explores the body not just as subject, but as an
instrument of expression.
Featured pieces
