Monday, December 12, 2011

CHUCK CLOSE- BRAD PITT


This portrait of Brad Pitt was similar to the portrait that Chuck Close did of Kate Moss.... The style shows the rawness of the human and gives the viewer a microscopic view to every crevice on their face. I enjoy this portrait because it amazes me how daring Close was. He went to the details that cosmetic companies hope to change. He makes art out of every day people, and points out their "flaws" in a way that makes it very beautiful to look at. You don't really see it as a flaw, you see it as a purity of who the person actually is.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Belarusian painter Leonid Afremov is one of the most colorful painters you’ve never heard of.  His skill with a palette knife and oil paint creates vivid scenes and cityscapes full of bright colors and watery reflections.  His thick strokes are almost mosaic in nature, but the result is not without detail where the colors merge.  Afremov’s landscapes capture the emotion of a casual stroll through an old Belarusian city, with all the vibrant color and culture alive in this artist’s perspective. The paintings from this artist are amazing simply because of the use of colors. It brightens up any environment

Peter Blake - Last summer


I decided to do this by Peter Blake because we have been studying him all semester. This is an advertisement for Coke in the UK and I liked how he Incorporated there culture. I also like how all the colors in the rainbow are in this. It really catches my attention and makes me want to buy this product.

America- Andres Serrano

This is America by Andres Serrano. It was done in 2003 and is a photograph. I chose this picture because with all of the shows pertaining to little girl beauty queens it is interesting to see less glamour and more of the natural girl. When i look at little girl beauty queens now all I see if fake and when I look a this I see a real little girl who is a winner because she is naturally beautiful. I like this because it does show her natural beauty. The color in the background really highlights her eyes and her purple outfit. I also like that with her sash it is making her look like miss america but yet she is only a little girl. It shows what a child aspires to be an that is he dream to be a beauty queen.

Andrew Tift "Lisa Law" (original Mexico Hippe)

I chose this picture because I really liked the colors and patterns. There is color throughout the whole painting. I liked how Andrew Tift painted this picture. There's a lot of detail in the picture. Also the woman is directly in the center of the painting which I thought was a unique technique. It reminds me of Mexico because of the colors. I think he also depicted the woman meditating well. She looks calm and peaceful. This painting really shows the expression of the woman.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

statue of liberty, 1962


i picked this painting by Andy Warhol because i like the style in which he did this work, which was silkscreen ink and spray paint on linen. it is a very simple concept and could have a bunch of different meanings to it because it is a picture of the statue of liberty.

Andrew Tift's "Laughing Cowboy"

Andrew Tift's painting, "Laughing Cowboy" stood out to me because of its exquisite detail and coloring. He seems to capture his subject in his paintings so well that it almost looks like a photograph. I enjoyed this painting because of how rich the coloring was and how life-like it seemed. Most of Tift's works are portraits and he paints a wide variety of people, all in different scenarios. Tift was able to capture every wrinkle and line in the "Laughing Cowboy" and even emphasized his straggly teeth, which I thought was humorous. He seems to really capture the essence of a person and I believe this painting is a great representation of the work that Tift does.

Shirana Shabazi- Goftare nik

The is a C-Print done by Shirana Shabazi and is entitled Goftare nik (good words). It is part of a series she did on the landscape and people of Iran. I choose this because the little girl looked so cute. She has big round blue eyes that seem like they are looking right at you, they do however seem almost a little cut out almost. Her lips are also opened a little. It makes me wonder what they were doing to make this little girl stop and look so they could create this picture.

Midnight Waterloo by susan hiller

This self- portrait was made by Susan Hiller  in 1987. This portrait caught my eye because the picture looked almost as though it had been written or graffitied on. She is captured almost scared looking and very serious, almost as if something had just happened and she was not expecting it. This picture was really unique and many different qualities that I have not seen before. Many portraits before and after this one captured the graffiti/ scribble look and really captured her viewers. 

"Unknown" 2011

Since this is our last blog post of the semester, I decided to stray from the artist list in our text and just go with an artist I know I enjoy. (David Walker is definitely one of my favorite artists) He challenges the concepts of fine art through his beautiful graffiti/photo realistic style and he paints on canvas and in public places. This is one of his more recent pieces which I love! I have just always been drawn to the layering of color and the splatter patterns. He doesn't use paint brushes or any tools but for spray paint. His figures remind me of angels. The scale of his work is also captivating, most f the public domain works he creates are on the sides of buildings or store fronts, this "Unknown" 2011 painting is on canvas, but it too clears 5 feet in height.

Monday, December 5, 2011

The Woodmen and Gardeners, 2002 - Andrew Festing


I chose this picture because I thought it was really different from most of the other pictures we saw in class. What I really liked about this picture was the colors used and the way everything was painted. I think that the oil on canvas brought out the scenery and it almost made the picture look very life-like.What I also found interesting about this picture was that the Earl of Leicester initiated portraits of employees in modern times, which is why Andrew Festing painted his staff on his Holkham Hall estate in Norfolk. I liked how the portrait was of his employees because I thought that it was very different than just a picture of an average or famous person. I also liked how this portrait "depicts [the] outdoorsmen in their working environment, striking casual poses, dressed in their workers' garb."
Belarusian painter Leonid Afremov is one of the most colorful painters you’ve never heard of.  His skill with a palette knife and oil paint creates vivid scenes and cityscapes full of bright colors and watery reflections.  His thick strokes are almost mosaic in nature, but the result is not without detail where the colors merge.  Afremov’s landscapes capture the emotion of a casual stroll through an old Belarusian city, with all the vibrant color and culture alive in this artist’s perspective. The paintings from this artist are amazing simply because of the use of colors. It brightens up any environment

Final Slides










Final Slides










Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Teaser by David Mach



I chose this picture by David Mach because I liked how the eyes were really intense. I thought the red scarf really made the woman's eyes pop. It is also a mysterious picture because her eyes are the main focus of the picture. I also like how the scarf over the woman's mouth is sheer and you can see the detail of her nose underneath it. David Mach gives a lot of attention to detail.

American Flag 2009

i chose this artwork done by vik muniz because i thought it was different, and cool because of how it is done made of plants. what makes this interesting is how Muniz’s work is the idea of what he calls a “perceptual bottleneck.” In this work, the viewer can choose either to see a flag or the substance from which it is made which is plants. It is this two-pronged approach. the creation and then the documentation – that makes Muniz’s work a unique combination of real event and reproduction.

Escape Artist by Sam Taylor Wood


I chose this portrait because someone had done a photo similar to this the other week and I was curious what other work Wood had done. She continued these odd photos. I think they are incredible though. It looks very real, you almost believe that the balloons are holding her up in the air. This is actually a self-portrait. I'm not really sure why she made this photo, I think it is very unique. I'm not sure of the meaning or what message she was trying to convey. I think it is beautiful and unique though.

Vic Muniz- Wasted

This piece caught my eye because its an entire work of art made out of trash, which is why its called wasted. I find it interesting that he made a work of art about love out of trash. He is known for using different types of materials and I idolize him for that.

Andy Warhol

Currently on display at the MoMA, this Andy Warhol Self Portriat 1966 really attracted me because of the vibrant use of color. This piece is about 5 1/2 ft in all directions and is composed of nine separate canvases. I know these colors are characteristic of Warhol's art, but the constant of the color red was really eye catching and has a way of unifying all of the separate silk screen squares,tying them into one cohesive piece of art. I also liked this self portrait better than the one we've seen previously in classes. His hand and pose make the composition more interesting for me. Very cool silkscreen ink prints!

Blue Dunk, Walter Iooss



This is a photo of Michael Jordan done by Walter Iooss. Iooss is a prolific sports photographer who has captured some of the greatest moments in sports history. I guarentee that everyone has seen at least one Walter Iooss photo before. This picture is awesome. Iooss gets a great angle above the rim capturing Jordan and his shadow. I think that to capture a great action shot takes alot of time and patience and Iooss has many to be proud of, but this one is pretty special. These photo's are all about timing and the timing on this one is perfect.

HE/SHE 2003


This is HE/SHE done in 2003 by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. I think there art work is really cool, and rebellious. They just take ordinary stuff and make really cool shawdow art. It is rebellious because its pretty gross its a male and a female Tim and Sue peeing in public. It's very different, and the way they portray this as artwork is amazing. 

Philip-Lorca diCorcia Los Angeles 1993

I have looked at diCorcia's series of "heads" and this series is of Cities, he took pictures of many different people in different cities in different areas on the street, Candidly. It is a Chromogenic color print and is currently at the MoMA in New York. This photograph stood out to me in particular because the homeless man isn't in the front of the picture, he is to the side. He looks blended into the picture when you first look at it, and your view sort of looks to the left and then skims over to the rest of the portrait. He is on hollywood boulevard an area filled with celebrity, but as I looked at him and then passed on to the rest of the picture, I realized that this is what makes teh picture brilliant. He isn't lit up or flashy he is there in his simplicity as an ordinary passerby on the street, living so close to New York City you get used to seeing homeless people and simply ignoring their presence, as I had done in this picture. His clothes blend into either side of the street with the light shining down the middle and beyond, in other photographs by diCorcia, this isn't the case, so I found it interesting how un-detailed this picture may seem but how the photograph gives you a real life point of view.

Robert Gober Untitled 1991


This portrait is by Robert Gober and its lack of a title is very interesting, because it looks like a normal mans lower body but then you see there are candles coming out of various parts of his lower extremities. Gober used Wood, beeswax, leather, fabric and human hair to make this. It is currently at the MoMA museum. I chose this sculpture because of the oddities that it possesses, where is the rest of this "man" and what do the candles represent. There are so many questions and interpretations which is one thing I love about modern art.

David Mach

Here David Mach used various postcards to create a collage of the all American Barbie. From far you cannot tell that this portrait is made up of pieces of postcards only when you are close you can see the distinct images. It is also not smooth it has a rough texture. The postcard collection was shown at the solo exhibition at Jill George Gallery in London in October 2006. I also chose Mach last week and wanted to see some of his other work and that is why I chose this image. I thought it was very creative and different. I like how it is an image everyone knows and the colors fit the Barbie theme perfectly. I also like how he used postcards to create this it is a very complex piece.

David Hockney Mother 1, Yorkshire Moors

This is a photo montage created by David Hockney in 1985. It is influenced by the cubism movement. I thought that this was a very interesting portrait. Although it is fragmented and images are repeated and different sizes you can still see how the women would look if it was just a straight photo. If it were a simple picture if would be pretty straight forward of just an older lady. However, since it is broken up it adds a lot more complexity to this piece. It has become pretty popular style and if you go to this website, http://bighugelabs.com/hockney.php, you can "Hockneyizer" your own pictures to mimic his style.

The emperor's daughter- Nicola Hicks

This is The Emperor's Daughter by Nicola Hicks. She made this is 1998 and it is made out of bronze. I really like this bronze statue because i love how it looks like the little girl is riding her dog. When I was little and had a big dog I always tried to make my horse to ride around but she would never let me. I think it is adorable and it shows the love between a child and their animals and that there is a special bond between the two. I don't see the reference to the emperor but i still really like it. I also think it is really cool that it is not smooth and it looks scratchy but you can still see the form of both the animal she is riding on and the little girl.

Red Stare Head IV

This painting, done by Jenny Saville, is apart of her latest exhibition, Continuum. at the Gagosian Gallery in New York. The exhibition includes a series of "Stare" paintings which focus on close up views of faces staring into space. They are scaled up to a massive size in which each feature is described in layer upon layer of oil paint. The oil paints are applied in thick impasto layers, built up onto the canvases appearing at times to be semi-abstract, but revealing from a distance carefully constructed features. I chose this portrait because of the beauty of Saville's strokes with the paint. The painting itself is bold, with thick strokes and although the blankness of the girl's stare, you can still see some meaning to the emptiness.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Daphne Todd's "Last Portrait of Mother"

This portrait by Daphne Todd is a painting of her dead mother. She took it after her mother had passed away and it is at the refrigerated room of the funeral parlor. I think the picture is a bit morbid, but is painted very well. There are not many colors in the painting, which I believe gives a good representation of the situation. Todd captures her mother in a very unusual state, which most artists do not do. When first looking at the picture, you would not think that the mother is actually dead, but maybe just very frail and sickly. Todd's mother had given her permission to paint her deceased body a year before she died. She had worked for three days straight in order to complete the portrait and the undertaker had given her permission to do this as well. Todd won the BP Portrait Award in 2010 for this piece as well.

Newborn (Louis) by Vik Muniz

This piece of art is a gelatin silver print made by Vik Muniz. I love this piece because it is black and white but still shows so much detail. This image intriguied me to look more closely at it and then i could just see more and more detail as to the highlights and lowlights in the baby's face. It is very unique how the background slightly blends in with the baby as well but you can still tell where the background is and the baby is. Great piece of art!

David Mach

This sculpture of a gorilla was made from David Mach. His work fascinates me because he uses things like hangers to design his work. It is amazing how he bends, changes, and manipulates every type of hanger to fit it into the work he is creating. He has made several other works that have been very unique and all using the hangers as well. He has done a great job and he has been one of my favorite painters ever since. 

Two Waiting Women and B52 Nuclear Bomber- Colin Self- 1963


I chose this portrait because Colin Self is trying to show the anxiety about the threat of nuclear annihilation. He does this by using images signifying threat and aggression, and then tries to capture the tension between the two passive women in the photo. What I really liked about the picture was that the women are part-covert and part-fantasy portraits, combining images copied from a mass-produced fashion poster with imaginative invention.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Sandro Botticelli The Birth of Venus


This was painted in 1486 and it is tempura on canvas. There is a lot going on in this picture but Venus stands there very calmly and serene looking. She is looking to the side and appears to be thinking of something. The technique of this picture is very simple the ocean looks as though there is not much dimension on the left, but on the right there is depth that brings the viewer back to the horizon line. Its almost like she is on a stage.