Artist 15: Sylvia Ji

As I think I've said before, I'm a sucker for pretty dresses. Add to that quality costume makeup. Yes, I played dress up obsessively as a young child. Now that I've made my confessions, let me get to the art.

This artist creates portraits of women. They have highly ethnic elements to them, like the Mexican Dia de los Muertos makeup and the traditional Spanish veils or the halo that surrounds the Madonna and saints in Renaissance paintings. Some of them seem to be blended really ambiguously, which makes me wonder about the authenticity. Is the artist even Hispanic? Or does she just like Mexican/Spanish culture? Hard to say, and probably not terribly important, but all of the confusion does maybe take away from the meaning of the ethnic elements.
I like also the surreal element of the paintings. The artist sets her figures in vague planes of color. Sometimes she uses a gradient. But she usually uses the background colors on the figure somehow either with clothes or accessories, so the paintings feel very unified. She uses romantic elements such as flowers or butterflies to complement the figure and Viola! Super romantic ethnic painting.
Last note. Her poses seem to be based off of traditional portraiture, especially of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, but a lot of them are cropped or framed slightly differently for a nice little twist.

Check out her website here.

Artist 14: Jake and Dino Chapman

Actually, I'm not a huge fan of their installations in general. Actually not even their website. I don't mind things that are dark and I can handle a certain amount of vulgarity, but a lot of these installations seem pointlessly dark and vulgar. These artists probably have a good reason for all of that, but I'm not catching on, so they need to work on communicating their message more clearly and toning down the shock value.

So, you might ask, why post about artists that you don't like? I'll tell you why: 50 blog posts due by the end of the summer. But actually there are a few things I noticed about their installations that I did really like. They were just really creative.

Their usual format is to set up a gallery, that looks similar to a regular gallery. They have art framed that seems traditional, but often it is altered at least slightly. (Joker smiles on the faces or cartoon eyes) Then they'll set up another sculptural element to interact with the parodied gallery. These range from a Madonna next to a painting of a naked woman, to Nazis examining a giant wooden dinosaur. Another thing they do is set up the paintings in unconventional ways. For example, they'll have a set of framed images making a stick figure dog on one wall. I like these ideas, but I would probably execute them in a different way.




You can check out their website here if you're dying to see it. I obviously don't particularly recommend it.

Artist 13: Ulf Puder

This artist paints broken down houses. These paintings remind me a lot of a trip I took to Bay St. Louis after Hurricane Irene. One of the most bizarre and jarring things was to see all of the houses destroyed, and realize that people used to live in them. It felt kind of invasive just to drive by and peek in a living room whose wall had been pulled off. And it was life changing to see a foundation pillar spray painted "All's well thanks to God and State Farm." I think that is why his content seems to captivate people.

Houses and buildings communicate a lot about the people who live in them. And this guy portrays them incredibly simply, but effectively. The backgrounds are minimal so that the viewer focuses on the buildings only. Even while the content is something so solemn, the paintings are full of interesting angles and shapes. The houses are so colorful, too, especially considering the circumstances.

I found his work on this site.

Artist 12: Jason deCaires Taylor

Still on the beachy theme. This artist makes underwater sculptures. I love how texture-ful they are. He draws his inspiration for all of the texture from coral reefs and underwater plants. He also designs some of these so that coral can grow on them. There is one that is a human form with lots of holes at regular intervals in which other coral plants can grow.
These also seem to draw on African and Caribbean art traditions of power objects. The man with the holes in him is titled "Holy Man" and looks like the plants were jabbed into the form in the same tradition as African and voodoo traditions.

 Also, the underwater setting gives them an otherworldliness that is just so cool. They remind me of the scary mermaids in Peter Pan. 

Check out his website it's pretty awesome.

Artist 11: JOOheng Tan

I get bored easily. So in the spirit of keeping things summery and unique. This is a famous sand sculptor. He makes his living building sandcastles. I'm not going to lie if I could pull that off, I would. He works at the beach... at least most of the time. Some of them are actually at sites where sand was dumped specifically for him and/or others to sculpt.

The crazy thing about it is, sand is really a pain to work with. You can't build anything too far off the foundation. It's very limiting. And these are so intricate, but still creative in spite of all the limitations of working with sand. A lot of planning must have gone into these sculptures. It reminds me of my high school English teacher's idea of enabling constraints. She said that some boundaries are actually really helpful with creativity. They give us a starting place and something to push up against. I guess it gives you a goal: see how far you can bend the rules without breaking them. So maybe that makes sand an ideal medium to work with. Still, I think I'll leave the sand sculpting to the professionals.

Check out the Fstoppers article  with a video of the artist putting together some of these sculptures and as always check out the artist's website to see some more of his work.

Artist 10: David Cooley

This is a more 2D artist. I love colors and patterns so I'm pretty incredibly drawn to this.

Also, I really like landscapes. I love drawing them, because they are just so formulaic. Bored in the car on the way to Missouri, alright let me just sketch out that mountain right there. Here's the horizon line, here's the sun. Here's the mountain, oh and a little rustic farmhouse. Boom! people are impressed.

Lots of times I play with the colors and come out with something like a scene from Willy Wonka or Alice in Wonderland. What this guy has come up with is way better. He takes awesome patterns and applies them to all kinds of otherwise boring landscapes and collages them with other stuff to make some really interesting pieces. Alright, they're not always landscapes, but I just think this is an interesting idea. He takes arbitrary color a step forward: arbitrary pattern. And I like it. And may or may not steal it at some point.

As always the link for stalking is here.

Artist 9: Nancy Holt

This artist creates sculptures that interact with their environment, especially with the sun. The experience of the sculpture changes based on the time of day, based on where the sun is in the sky. The form of the sculpture then is highly influenced by astronomical forms, like the sun and moon and their paths around the planet. They incorporate a lot of circles, cylinders, and spheres.

The colossal size of the sculptures make it possible for people to climb in, on and around them. They are made to interact with their audience. Although the visual illusions involving the sun will only work certain ways from certain angles, the forms are interesting from every angle, and the individual gets to decide exactly how they will experience the piece.

Some of her sculptures I've noticed are really random, like a cylindrical cement form in the desert, while others are incorporated more organically into their environment. I think the more organically designed pieces work better. They make the element of optical illusion that much more pleasantly surprising.

Her website was down when I looked, but maybe it will be up again soon. Otherwise you can always google her like I did.

Artist 8: Nick Cave

Nick Cave creates what he calls soundsuits. They are head to toe body suits, which can be used in dance performances or displayed on mannequins. They draw from traditional African masquerades and traditions. Often they are made from raffia and beading that moves in fantastically interesting ways, so that it almost seems the suit has a life of its own.
Nick Cave's pieces give the traditional African pieces a contemporary American twist. They use American objects and toys, buttons, and glitter. They also use some more western textile styles, such as knits and manufactured cotton. They merge the two cultures incredibly well.

I just love the performance aspect. Art that has to be experienced. The videos look amazing, and I'm dying to see some of these performances in person.

He doesn't have a lot of images on his website, but he is showing in the 30 Americans Show, which is currently at the Chrysler Museum.

Artist 7: Ana Bagayan

She paints aliens. How cool is that?
On her bio she says that her work "incorporates the inherent beauty of interpreting both the known and the unknown." So basically she's all about sci fi stuff like aliens, ghosts, and hypnotism.

Really, the thing that initially drew me to her work, even before the aliens, is that her figures look just like my drawing style from middle school. They have huge eyes and  relatively large heads. They always have pointy small chins and teeny tiny noses, and the hair visually takes up half the head. I used to draw exactly like this! It's crazy to see someone else painting in this style.

When I drew this way it was because I was trying to draw anime style, but I couldn't let go of the formula I'd learned in elementary school for how to draw a face, so this was my in between realism and anime. It makes me wonder how she arrived at this style.

Also I'd just like to note that some of these compositions are really creative and interesting. I like the way she uses unusual formats and sometimes incorporates the framing.

Check out her tumblr here.

Update

I just finished uploading some of the things I've been working on to flickr. You should check it out.
Also, in other news, my computer is fixed (sort of) and now I can do some photoediting finally. YAY!
Which is making me realize just how much I need to get a move on! I only have 6 artists up. That's ridiculous.
So, in the next few days I'm going to try to get some serious research done, and to post a journal of ideas for projects, including some sketches from my sketchbook, which it just so happens are living on my flickr right now.