Assignment 2: Recommended Artists

Recommended artists:

Yoshitomo Nara, Diane Arbus, Allison Schulnik, Hiroshi Sugito, Edward Hopper, Jenny Dubnau

       Yoshitomo Nara

Use of Image: Imagery is sort of ironic and cute. Pleasant pastel colors, soft shapes, few details.

Use of Process: It looks like this artist builds up the texture of the surface before painting. There seems to be a layer of strips of paper or tape underneath the paint.

Use of Concept: Child characters doing the opposite of what children ought to do. 

i.e. a little girl smoking angrily (above)

             Diane Arbus

Use of Image: Unusual characters usually looking directly at the camera.

Use of Process: Finding characters, processing photographs, adjusting contrast.

Use of Concept: Looking into peoples lives, seeing them in their own element.

          Allison Schulnik

Use of Image: figurative paintings, a themed subject.

Use of Process: painted with thick paint, some figures, the face has layers and layers of a thick gloppy substance.

Use of Concept: A lost or displaced clown, sorrowfully wandering the land scape.

           Hiroshi Sugito

Use of Image: Child-like illustrational qualities.

Use of Process: Thin textured layers, bold colors.

Use of Concept: Perhaps to re-connect us to feelings of our own childhood.

          Edward Hopper

This is the first artist of which my work closely resembles.

Use of Image: Every-day common settings and subjects, painted from a distance. Only I paint my figures a little closer in, and from a straight-ahead sort of position.

Use of Process: Representationally painted. His process could have involved the taking of a reference photograph or having his subjects stand for a long time, or painting from memory. The process is all in the designing of the composition and the painting of the surface. 

Use of Concept: Daily life, distance. Finding beauty in common activities, glorifying the daily routine by painting it.

          Jenny Dubnau

This is the second artist who my work resembles.

Use of Image: Portraits. Specific expressions. A muted color scheme. We share these traits in our work.

Use of Process: Photo-realism. Painted from photo references that the artist takes. I too set up my own photos that i take specifically for painting references. Though I do not paint photo-realiatically, I paint representationally.

Use of Concept: To capture a moment, an expression, and then give importance to that moment by painting it.