Artist 24: Ay-O

This is a Japanese artist, and his installations just make me happy. It reminds me of when I was a little kid and if you asked me what my favorite color was I'd say "rainbow".

This artist shows the whole world in rainbow gradients. If only I'd gotten to see this as a little kid!
I'm not sure if this would count as art for real for me, but it is fun and trippy and interesting. My favorite is the classical bust painted rainbow, so fabulous!

 He definitely does take the one pattern to about its full extent, and all in one room. It makes me wonder what would happen if I just sat down and decided to fill a room with variations of one pattern or image. I would probably come up with some incredibly fabulous ideas! That would be a good enabling constraint, although I think this one and other super in your face patterns like it might be a little overwhelming if you saw it in person.


I found him on http://ilikethisart.net/

Artist 23: Scott Hazard

This artist has one of the coolest albeit simplest ideas ever.

This artist takes photos and makes them look like they're ripped. I don't know, maybe he does rip them. It's hard to discern from his artist statement. But what you can discern from his artist statement is pretty interesting. He is trying to hint at the liminal space between everyday life and a sort of spiritual idea of beauty.  He talks about how the beauty and simplicity of landscapes and cityscapes can break up the daily grind for an aesthetic breath.

But to be honest I don't really get the whole of that idea from his pieces. They do look kind of like portals to another dimension though. He just needs to make one about a wardrobe leading to Narnia.

 Check out his website.

Piece 1 Done (or almost)

Post your thoughts! I still might do some editing and I would really love to hear everyone's ideas about what they like or don't like.

Artist 22: Aaron Crawford

Time to buckle down and get to work on these.

The thing that appeals to me about this artist is that he uses so many colors, happy looking colors, but the drawings themselves are of things like monsters and creepy spiders. His paint is splattered messily on the paper. The drawings make sense of the senseless paint splatters.


OK. Now I will share another huge love of mine. I like monsters. I like drawing them and I like seeing other people's drawings. Because there is so much scope for imagination (Oh man too much Anne of Green Gables). Really though, monsters are just fun. They can look like anything, and the more creative the better. This guy has a couple go-to's. He uses drippy long looking fingers, and lots of eyes all over the place. He uses regular animals for the heads and then distorts them. Anyways, they're just kind of fun to look at.

Anyways, look up his website.

Artist 21: Yim Choon Lee

When I was in La Jolla, there were galleries all over the place. Most of them were closed , but one smaller gallery called Salazar's was open, so I stopped in for a little bit. It wasn't a huge place, but it was nice. They had these awesome pieces by Yim Choon Lee that are called tearing art.


There's a whole process to these pieces. First, the artist paints on both sides of the canvas. Then, he makes a paper collage for the backing. He then proceeds to cut areas of the canvas very intentionally so that there are multiple strands. He twists these strands so that the viewer sees mostly the front painting on the canvas, but also where it's twisted they can see the back painting, and the paper collage in the spaces between the twisted strands. It makes for some very fascinating pieces.

He mentioned in his artist statement how part of his inspiration was the desire to capture the way the wind moved through bamboo leaves in a piece of art. It's crazy because that is such a difficult idea to capture, but I think this method does a pretty good job. Although his pieces are evolving away from that idea into other concepts, so the colors and forms don't quite seem like leaves anymore. Still, I think it's pretty impressive.

 Check out his site here.

Artist 20: Susan Middleton

I'm back from California, and really not appreciating this East Coast humidity. Ugh. But anyways, while I was in Cali I found a few artists to write about so there should be a few posts today. Starting with this one. I saw some of her work while on layover at the San Francisco airport. How convenient, right?

She photographs rare flora and fauna. The series I saw probably used a huge lens to zoom in, to the point where her photos look almost like they were take with a microscope. What this does is capture the intricate patterns even on some tiny plants and animals. Like snails, who knew snails were so beautiful? Some of them look entirely otherworldly, and I would really like to just incorporate them into some of my drawings. One that specifically caught my attention (I can't find it anywhere online so I can't even remember what the animal was) was a delicate white color with just hints of pink and blue had layers that looked a lot like pine cones. It was really just completely captivating. And really, so simple. She's just looking somewhere that not many people either would think to look or would get the chance to look, and displaying it for everyone to see.

She has pretty hardcore copyright warnings, so I'm scared to post any photos. But you should check out her website.

Artist 19: Scott Hove

I dedicate this blog to my sister. I like to tease her that I am going to do crazy things for my wedding (when I get married a long time from now) like make my colors navy blue, black, and brown, and have the reception at an ice skating rink and make the bridal party dress up like clowns. You know whatever are the least wedding-like wedding ideas I can come up with. She is always horrified and determined never to let it happen, and that reaction is why I do it.

Well, this artist has provided me with a whole new realm of inspiration as far as the cake. One of his sculptures reminded me of an idea I told my sister. A bleeding cake. But his cake sculptures push that creepy boundary even more. They have huge mouths in the middle. They are terrifying, but kind of fun. They combine the light frilly celebratory ideas of cake with ideas of human appetite and power. They're beyond weird, and I'm not sure I entirely understand them, but they are fun.

Also, I thought his cakeland installation was fascinating. A little disturbing, albeit. But fascinating. It left me thinking, why?


So he also does paintings which are completely different. You should just go to his site.

Artist 18: Peter Gric

Still Awake. Did some browsing and voila! I found another surrealist.

This artist paints robots, but in a different way (of course otherwise nobody would care). His robots seem incredibly romantic. I'm pretty sure they intentionally reference the classical ideal of the human figure. Also, the muted colors remind me of the marble in so many classical and neo-classical sculpture.

So, these robots look perfect like Michelangelo's "David", but they have very intricate webs of wires or metal sculptures coming out of and supporting them. It reminds me of the old Star Wars, but without that feeling that the computer graphics were cutting edge twenty years ago. These are just breathtakingly beautiful. Nothing seems corny about them.
The robots are not the only things that he paints.

He also paints some weird landscapes. They remind me of Dali. They have mostly normal desert landscape elements with weird land forms. The land forms evolve into geometric shapes which don't fit the semi-natural looking landscape at all, and it all comes out looking otherworldly, but fantastically interesting.

He's great! Probably another favorite. Look him up!

Artist 17: Ken Taylor

This artist makes posters for bands, and movies. I think that would be a great gig. It reminds me of my friend who is always showing me different CD art. They range from photography to illustration, but the great thing about them is that the general rule seems to be the weirder, the better.

I think I could handle that kind of work. I might get bored, though, if I was always making what other people tell me. I'm not sure.

Anyways, I like the format in that he uses a lot of a tall, thin poster with strong vertical lines in the composition that accent it.

I specifically love the Avett Brothers poster with the empire state building hovering in mid air in the middle of nowhere. There's something surprising about it. Part of this, I think goes back to the format. You can't look at the whole length of the poster at once, so you start at the top. Then you form expectations, based on the iconic empire state building which is so familiar, as to what the bottom of the poster should look like. So, when the poster does not meet those expectations it is that much more captivating.

Anywho, check out the site and Happy 4th!

Artist 16: Nagai Hideyuki

Ok, so I don't think this one is super famous to be honest. BUT he is from Japan and I in Virginia have found him WITHOUT a google search. And look at his work. It's so cool and creative.

His drawings are optical illusions that make two sketchbooks look like a popup book. Who does that? More importantly how does he do it? No, but really I'm still kind of trying to figure it out. His drawings have to be super accurate with the shading, and I think also he has to take the photo of them at just the right angle.

I like the things that he draws. The drawings are very sci fi-ish with tunnels and alien looking things and lots of machines. But even while it's got the whole end of the world science fiction idea it's still adorable and Japanese looking. I love the cute little monsters. I don't even know if they're supposed to be cute, but they are. It's really interesting to see the whole dark apocalypse idea combined with the light adorable Japanese style.

Also, one more much more serious thing. I like how he interacts with the drawings in some of the photos. Still drawing in one, pushing a button in another, and taking the eraser from a clown in a different one. These interactions give the drawings even more life and depth. It makes the 3D illusion so incredibly real. Honestly, it drives me crazy like he's breaking the laws of physics or something.



Anyways, here's his link. A warning, you might have to get your browser to translate, because it's in Japanese.