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.

Dirty White Trash

This is Dirty White Trash by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. It was made in 1998 out of garbage they found laying around on the street. I think it is so cool that if there wasn't any light being pt on the garbage that there would be no image and rather just another random pile of stuff, but when they light is on the garbage there is an image. I love the whole concept and it makes me want to try to do it because this is real life art in my eyes. They are using resources just from general everyday life to make these structures that really do look like real people, it is unbelievable to me.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Tom Wesselmann "Lulu"

This painting was done for a benefit print for the Metropolitan Opera. Lulu was known the main character of the Alban Berg Opera and she was known for seducing all the men in her life and breaking their hearts. Even though this painting has simple lines in most of the painting it still expresses emotions. To me she looks sad to neutral maybe trying not to show her true emotions. This painting has bright colors and simple imagery and that is what drew me to this painting. There is a great use of complimentary colors that makes the woman stand out really well as well as great composition. Overall i think this is a great painting.


Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Paul Gauguin's The Yellow Christ


This painting was created by Paul Gauguin. I love this piece for its simplicity and for the fact that it is open to various interpretations. The subjects included in this painting dont seem to correlate to one another. It is almost cartoon-like visually as well.

Natalia Vdianova by Mario Testino

I chose this picture because I liked the previous pictures by Mario Testino. I like his work but I think that this picture's a lot different than the type of photos he usually takes. He usually takes pictures of famous people in a more natural state. This picture is more abstract and fictional. Also, the other portraits I've seen by him capture the subject in a more carefree state whereas the subject of this photo looks like she's struggling. I really liked the colors in the photo. The background and the models eyes are similar in color. The model also has a bluish-green hue to her. This photo is similar to another I picture I posted by Mario Testino because one side of the model's face is dark and mysterious because it has a shadow on it.

Crushed Missile

Peter Kennard's 1980 photographic work, "Crushing Missile", is like most of his work a political piece. From the year of creation and the imagery of the picture it is clearly about the Cold War, providing commentary on the race to create the most powerful weapon. Beacuase the picture was created before the conclusion of the Cold War, I think Kennard is simply trying to express that he is anti-war, as with other pieces he has created which feature peace signs and general anti-war images. I like the contract of light and dark and how the hand appears to be floating as if it caught the missile in mid-air and crushed.

The Woodmen and Gardeners


I chose this paiting by Andrew Festing because I thought the reasoning behind it was cool. He makes a point that portraiture is a "practice begun in and most commonly reserved for, the upper echelons of society." Here he depicts woodmen and gardeners in a working environment, relaxed and in working clothing. We don't recognize anyone in the paiting and they are all just common blue collar workers.

Cindy Sherman untitled 1981


Cindy Sherman has built a name as one of the most respected photographers of the late 20th century. A lot of her work is based on herself as the subject. This photograph really caught my attention because of the fear and confused look in the face of the photograph. It was very interesting to me because in all of her work she is the subject of the work playing a different role as an actress or something. This one looks like she's in the scene of a horror movie. 

Marilyn

David Mach is a Scottish sculptor and installation artist. Mach uses and variety of everyday objects, to create his often large-scale pieces. In the early 1980s Mach started to produce some smaller-scale works assembled out of unstruck match sticks. As in the above image most of the forms were human or animalistic heads and masks. The colored tip if the match heads were put together to arrange and construct the patterned surface of the face. I chose this image of Marilyn Monroe because it is very different while being a beautiful image created out of match sticks. I like the use of the match sticks it is very different and creative. After accidentally setting fire to one of these heads, Mach now often ignites his mach pieces as a form of performance art.

MR ART


Mr Art by Larry Rivers painted this picture of the art critic, David Sylvester. This painting demonstrates the spontaneous brushwork that Rivers had adopted from Abstract Expressionists. Rivers used portraiture in a subversive way that not only returns painting to the world but drains the language of Abstract.

Mario Testino

I chose this photo because over the past few weeks ive enjoyed looking through his art work. I feel this photo is very complimentary to her and really describes her personality which to me is not really caring what others think. I also like how the black and white photo shows depth and emphasizes her angle. I also really like how this photo shows her natural beauty.

Knead

Jenny Saville's "Knead" depicts a woman laid in a hospital bed with a breathing apparatus in her mouth, clearly extremely ill. I think the color suggest irony, with the light, warm colors often resembling the happiness but in this case resembling the possible death of another human. Saville is known for her paintings of unhappy situations, yet using bright, light colors to suggest irony. I chose this painting because I like her use of brush strokes and strong colors. They add a sense of body texture and feel which a block color painting wouldn't.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

David Cobley's "Blues, Beer and Rock 'n' Roll"

David Cobley's painting entitled "Blues, Beer and Rock 'n' Roll" is a representation of a man sitting in a room with old records and drinking a beer. I really liked this painting because of how well it was painted and the colors that were used to bring the subject to life. I really enjoyed how Cobley painted this work from a different perspective. By looking down on his subject, the viewer is able to see the whole room and not just the subjects face. Everything in the painting is extremely detailed, down to the covers of the records that are shown. It's truly amazing how Cobley was able to portray the man in this way and make him looked so relaxed and so life-like. Currently, Cobley is living in Bath, England and paints a lot of his work based on the people around him.

Monday, November 14, 2011

GARY JACKETTI


This piece of art was done by Gary Jacketti, himself. Mosaics are one of his favorite pastimes. Jacketti makes his own tiles from scratch. He take clay, forms large tiles, glazes them with enamel, bakes and cuts them to fit his concept. One highlight was his take-off on Andy Warhol’s ubiquitous portrait of Elizabeth Taylor. Up close, it’s a blur of color, step back and the mosaic’s likeness to Warhol’s portrait is astounding, given the medium.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Self Portrait, After Marilyn Monroe- Yasumasa Morimura


<-This is a gelatin silver print done by Yasumasa Morimura in 1996. It is based off of a picture of Marilyn Monroe(seen above) and is entitled "Self Portrait, After Marilyn Monroe. This is a common technique she does like the one we studied in class "An Inner dialogue with Frida Kahlo" where she models herself off someone famous. However in this one she does not resemble Marilyn Monroe. When compared to the picture of Marilyn she did create a lot of similarities, but i would have liked it to be closer. The facial expression especially is not like how Marilyn usually posed and should be more sultry like in the picutre she modeled after or smile like she does in other pictures. I do like the idea of trying to make herself look like famous people and role models.






Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Sasha vs Tin by Mario Testino


This portrait was created by Mario Testino that previously made The Prince of Wales portrait. I loved how he created this too like like two different images. One made in a painting look and the other as if he sketched a comic or heroine in a children's book. The love the contrast of both pictures side by side and it really gets you to open your mind to the different aspects of the portrait and the girl in the portrait. I love the background he used as well as the dull colors to reflect the stormy background. It was greatly done and really showed Testino's talent in a different way.

Willie Doherty- Non-Specific Threat V (Nauseating Barbarity), 2003


I chose this painting because I liked how everything about the picture was dark, even the man's face, and especially his eyes. "This visual strain reflects the impossibility of discerning the 'real truth' of the situation." He chose to capture a man who seems to look very threatening and could be a dangerous person. This is because Willie Doherty "reflects upon violent and terrorist situations around the world. He analyses how we determine who the enemy is, and by what criteria we judge them." By looking at this picture, people would think that this man could be an enemy and maybe even a potential terrorist. What I found interesting was that the person he chose plays the 'bad guy' in a television series and was chosen because "he didn't change his physical appearance for the role, or for this portrait." Also, I liked the graffiti in the background, which seemed to stand out in the picture, making people associate the man with the graffiti.


This is one of Chuck Closes self portraits. I chose to do this because I like the gridding technique Chuck Close uses and we're about to start doing something like this in class I think. I also thibnk that its amazing that Chuck Close can still paint this way even though he had to re-learn how to paint.

“Sphinx (Road to Enlightenment)”

This is another sculpture by Marc Quinn of Kate Moss. I did Marc Quinn again because I think he creates interesting pieces of art. This is from the same collection where he depicits Kate as a sphinx but she is also depicted as Buddha. I thought it was interested how she looks almost emaciated while most depicitions of Buddha are fat. I also loved how he shows her muscles, veins and trachea!

Perfect Shot by Sam Taylor Wood





I chose this piece because I thought it was cool how the woman is floating in mid air. She is actually held up by harnesses which are later digitally removed. She hides her face in these type of pictures of her because the harnesses are extremely painful and uncomfortable. she believes that her facial expressions would ruin the art. Taylor-Wood actually fought through breast and colon cancer and the harnesses cut across some of the scars of her cancer surgery. Fun Fact: Elton John said "if he were ever to go the other way again, that Sam would be the woman he would want to spend the rest of his life with."










Jenny Saville "Rosetta"



This painting jumped out at me when searching for a piece for this week's blog, mainly beacuse it looked strikingly scary. After looking at it for a few moments I started to appreciate the actual painting technique that was used by the painter, Jenny Saville. In an interview found on the internet, Saville rolls out canvas on her floor to paint them with paint brushes attached to sticks so that the five foot tall painter can sweep the paint across the canvas. Saville does not paint from real life, but rather images from photographs, medical textbooks and newspapers. She has even attended plastic surgery operations in order to see how flesh can be moved and manipulated. After reading that last line from the same interview, it made looking at her painting technique even more captiavting.

conflict in mid-air.

Sam Taylor-Woods work examines the split between being and appearance. She often places human subjects-either alone or in groups-in situations where there is a line between interior and external senses. She is an English filmmaker, Photographer, and visual artist. She began exhibiting fine art photography in the early 1990's. She suspends her subjects in mid-air which shows the internal fight with external factors. I chose this portrait because it is something different and has a meaning behind it. I like how her subjects are in mid-air in all different positions with their shadows behind them. This is a very interesting piece.

John Wayne by Andy Warhol


This is a screen print on Lenox Museum board. I chose this painting because the colors, and the face really stood out to me. I really like how you cant really see any expression through the eyes, but you see the shadow of the gun. The colors of this painting are also interesting choices, because it looks sort of neon like with all the lines and the blue color. 

Double Mona Lisa (Peanut Butter and Jelly) 1999

I picked Vik Muniz's Double Mona Lisa (Peanut Butter and Jelly) 1999 at first because I found it to be really funny, however the more I looked at the piece the more impressed I became. This quote, “Here’s the art history quiz for the day: What connects Leonardo da Vinci to Bosco chocolate syrup? Answer: Vik Muniz, an artist who specializes in unlikely means of not quite fooling the eye and calls the results ”photographic delusions", denotes Muniz's flaire for edible images. The question then becomes, are they fine are?... The level of detail and photo-real quality make it fine are to me for sure.

Amanda -Alex Katz

This piece is called Amanda by artist Alex Katz. It was done in 1973 and is oil on canvas. I really like this piece because I think it is a really beautiful depiction of a little girl. It reminds me of the American girl dolls and the picture of them in their story books that would come with each doll when you received it. I also liked this because I like the bold orange background and how her hat is blue so the colors are flowing and it makes her eyes pop more. It is also kind of creepy to me because it looks scarily similar to one of my friends from home. I also think the way it is painted shows the personality of the little girl and her happiness through the painting.

Diana, Princess of Wales by Mario Testino


I decided to research Mario Testino after various classmates completed a blog using his work. When I looked on his website there were many different portraits of celebrities. I found a folder that had various pictures of the royal family and this one stuck out to me the most. It wasn't posed it wasn't over the top glamour or high fashion, it was simple and very beautiful. This picture captures the very essence of Princess Diana in being that she was very simple but yet something is bold and chic about her. She wasn't an in-your-face royal she was a commoner who leveled with the common people. The other pictures (including Prince William and Kate Middletons wedding photo) were more posed and showed their riches. Where as this is simple and elegant without trying to hard.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011



Andy Warhol is known for taking simple objects and enhancing their appearance and meaning. Warhol used glittery, multi-colored arrangements against black backgrounds for his paintings of shoes. He drew imagitive images of shoes for retail stores. He started off using diamond dust for the "diamond dust shoes" but it came out too chalky. Then he replaced it with embedded sparkling pulverized glass. I chose this painting because he made something so simple, so colorful and interesting.

"Wild and Wild”

I chose this photo done by Mario Testino which was in the Italian Vogue, 2002 editorial. I think this is stunning because it makes you wonder where this girl is from. I like the fact that she's wearing natural tones on her face and is dressed in an enormous amount of colors, feathers, and textures. I also like how she is placed on the side and the one shine of light gives the photo a very warm feeling.

Andy Warhol's Flower painting


I chose this painting because I love the colors that he used and the simplicity of it. I also think its very cheerful and refreshing to look at. I also liked that there was controversy behind it because flowers were based on a color photography of hibiscus blossoms taken by Patricia Caulfield . Its been said that she has a lawsuit against him for copying her. This painting is one of many in his series called "Flowers".

Francis Picabia

This is a portrait painting oil on cardboard by Francis Picabia. I love this painting because there are several images of faces and hands of this woman. The neutral colors of calm me and then there are white flowers in the background with green leaves. There are seashells all over the painting in different sizes. All of these nature filled images in the background expresses a calming and serene background with the seductive girls face and arms. Overall great painting

"The New Barbarians" by Tim Noble and Sue Webster

This sculpture by Tim Noble and Sue Webster is called "The New Barbarians" and is made of resin and fiberglass. I think it is very interesting because it is a representation of the modern day barbarians. The faces of the male and female are still very monkey like, but one can tell that they are supposed to be more evolved than what we are used to seeing. The way that the male figure is embracing the female is very unique because when we usually see sculpture like this, the male and female have no contact. Tim Noble and Sue Webster might be alluding to the fact that we have evolved into a more connected society and a compassionate race. The facial expressions on the sculptures are also very different, with the male's face seeming alert and concerned, while the female's expression seems fascinated with something. Tim Noble and Sue Webster's work is usually very humorous and different and I think this sculpture represents that.