Collaborative portraiture

Abstract

Contemporary portrait artists Riva Lehrer and Tanya Raabe-Webber use portraiture to explore their own and others’ experiences of disability and have thus confronted ableist art-historical narratives and portrayals in portraiture. Recognizing the delicate relationship that exists between the artist and the subject, and the power of the portrait artist to construct the sitter’s identity, these two artists have transformed traditional portrait practices by enabling collaborative portraits to be produced by themselves and their sitters. This chapter situates these artists’ collaborative portraits within the theoretical framework of feminist disability studies to demonstrate how collaborative portraiture empowers the disabled subject, breaks down the authority of the artist’s and viewer’s defining gaze directed at the disabled body, offers counter-narratives to ableist representations, and creates new spaces to discuss the embodied experiences of disability and impairment.