Artist of the moment…..Omar Rayo

{ May 23, 2013 @ 3:14 am } · { Uncategorized }
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>Omar Rayo was a wonderful painter from Colombia that specialized in basic geometric shapes and explosive color in his work. Born in 1928 in Roldanillo, Valle del Cauca, Colomia, Rayo was one of the first internationally renown Op-artists. Some other names in the movement would be the British artist Bridget Riley and the French/ Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely. For his pallete Rayo used mainly black, white, and red. In this manner he was similar to Piet Mondrian.

price range information: Omar Rayo worked with acrylics, oils, and plastic sculptures. The works range from $10,000 to $65,000.

For his collegiate studies Omar Rayo attended the Academia Zier de Buenes Aires located in Argentina.

With his own money the artist opened up a museum to showcase his works in his hometown in Colombia. The museum contains more than 2,000 works by Rayo and more than 500 by other well known artists hailing from Latin America. The museum is a great location and besides the original artwork has a library, theater, and workshop to study graphics design. Rayo founded the museum with a majority of his own monies with some assistance from the Colombian government. The building was designed by renown Mexican architect Leopoldo Gout.

When only 19 years old Rayo got his start in the commercial art world working as an newspaper and magazine illustrator.

Omar Rayo passed away in 2010 at the age of 82 years old.

A great selection of works by the artist.

Winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Part of many prestigious collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Institute of Art in Chicago, and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Japan.

Spent much of his life living in Colombia, Mexico, and New York city.

Omar Rayo was among the first artist to work on specially shaped canvases. In this clip we see some of these works.

 

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Artist of the moment…..Kenneth Noland….

{ May 23, 2013 @ 12:32 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Kenneth Noland is wonderful artist known for his use of circles in his artwork.  Kenneth Noland was born in 1924 in Asheville, North Carolina. Noland is associated with two artistic movements, color field painting and abstract expressionism. Noland’s father was a doctor. The artist enrolled in the Air Force as soon as he finished high school. It was 1942 and the United States was in the thick of World War 2.

The main emphasis of Noland’s work is simple design with a great use of color.

After finishing his tours of duty Noland used the G.I. bill to enroll as a student at Black Mountain College. Whilst at this college he studied under the great Ilya Bolotowsky. Bolotowsky has been featured on this blog recently. A goodwill shopper was able to find an original that she bought for less than one hundred dollars and sold for more than $30,000 at auction.

Noland loved to paint with basic geometric shapes.  Most works are targets, circles, stripes, and irregular shaped canvases.

price range information: Noland worked with oils and acrylics and both range from $10,000 to more than $600,000.

Kenneth Noland passed away in 2010 at the age of 85 years old.

Below is a wonderful montage of the artists work.

Keep exposing yourself to as much art as possible!

D

Artist of the moment……Gao Brothers…..

{ May 22, 2013 @ 12:02 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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A wonderfully talented duo that are actual brothers in real life born in Jinan, Shandong, China. This area is in the north east part of China. The older brother is Zhen born in 1956. The younger brother is named Qiang, who was born in 1962. The duo has been working on collaborative works since 1985. Employing a wide variety of mediums, they are renown for their depictions of Mao with breasts. Mao had an important and significant role in the Gao brothers life. Their father was a political dissident and was put in jail when they were young. At the ages of 12 and 6 years old, their father passed away whilst in a Chinese jail.

Most famous for their photography.

For their collegiate education Zhen attended the Shandong Academy of Fine Arts. Qiang graduated from Qufu Normal University.

First exhibition was a large work that was made to replicate the sexual organ of a hermaphrodite. Another early work dealt with Tiananmen Square, a large hand with a bloody hole in the center.

The hug is another major theme of the brothers. Some works have people hugging with clothes on and sometimes naked.

Another theme is cramming many naked bodies into a small box. This series of images is called Sense of Space and a work from this series is below.

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An example of their hugging performance art here.

In this clip we see the artist duo’s famous Miss Mao dancing atop Lenin’s head, very carefully.

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Artist of the moment….digital street artists Graffiti Research Labs

{ May 21, 2013 @ 4:29 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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This group is a duo of very smart engineers that used to work with technology alongside NASA with a group called HoneyBee Robotics. When their work got them involved with the Iraq war, the tandem quit their jobs and would go onto start  and start  this cooperative. The group consists of Evan Roth and James Powderly as the main spokes, and many other additional contributors.

Graffiti Research Lab is best known for the  use of LED lights with what they call throwies. An LED throwie is a light attached to a coin battery and a magnet. People attach the LED’s to objects, then the objects are the canvas. The Graffiti Research Lab made these beginning in 2006. In the clip below we learn more about LED throwies.

The Graffiti Research Lab has “cells” which exist in Amsterdam, Netherlands  , Vienna, Austria, and in Mexico. The cells communicate with each other, but aren’t one single company. More like two arms of the body working in tandem.

James Powderly has even spent time in jail for his art in China. Around the time of the opening of the Olympic games in Beijing in 2008 the Graffiti Research Lab was to be part of an exhibition at the National Art Museum of China for their Laser Tag digital art or “laser graffit.” Well the Chinese officials found out about some contacts that Powderly had made and figured he would try to promote a message of Free Tibet. They feared he might project these words on the side of a building. He was arrested and detained for nearly one week!

The group is known for projecting their digital graffiti on the sides of public buildings. This work has been featured at the Tate Modern in London and the Sundance Film Festival.

In this clip by James Powderly we learn more about the group.

A link to the Graffiti Research Lab website. Very fun to see what is going on in this new medium of street art!

http://eyebeam.org/people/graffiti-research-lab

This cell is based out of New York. What a unique and amazing way to do street art. I had no idea. And for the Chinese government to lock him up when most foreigners are thrown out shoes how threatened they are by artists and people who think for themselves. Way to go street art!

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Artist of the moment….Jessie Oonark

{ May 21, 2013 @ 2:32 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Jessie Oonark was an Inuit artist known not only for her printmaking skills, but also for her woven tapestry skills. Jessie Oonark was born in the Baker Lake, Nunavet Territory, in Canada.

Oonark didn’t become involved with art until she was in her fifties. Before that she enjoyed the role of the traditional Inuit woman. Making clothes from sealskin and caribou. In 1959 a biologist working in the area gave her some supplies and a creative genius was born.

When she first began her printmaking career the only printing press the Inuits had was in Cape Dorset. Jessie Oonark was the only artist outside of Cape Dorset to work with the Cape Dorset printing press. The one and only artist!

She was a janitor at a church before a sponsor bought her a small studio and she was able to produce art full time and issue many print series.

Price range information: The artist worked with prints and drawings ranging between $1,500 and $5,000. Embroidery works range $10,000 to $35,000.

In this clip we see an installation of one her very large tapestry works.

From our beloved friends at Waddington’s Auction house of Canada we see one of Jessie Oonark’s fabric works up for auction. It well exceeded the estimated price. Her works in fabric are sought after by collectors.

Jessie Oonark had 8 children that went on to become artists. They will follow in up coming posts!

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Artist of the moment….Owusu Ankomah

{ May 21, 2013 @ 1:00 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Owusu Ankomah is a fantastic contemporary artist born in Sekondi, Ghana in 1956. From a design point, the works are incredible. Look closely and at first glance the work is hypnotic and put the viewer in a daze to try and decipher what the symbols could mean. Then look closer and in many cases there is at least one person, often times in motion, also hiding in the picture. In addition to his own culture the artist makes up his own symbols and borrows some signs and strokes from Chinese calligraphy.

In this clip we listen Ankomah talk about the art economy and if art can be used to help poverty stricken areas of the world.

It may take you some time but please try to find at least one the characters “hidden” in Owusu Ankomah’s work!

The artist’s work is very contemporary as it includes symbols and texts from cultures around the globe that you would not normally associate with each other, such as African and Chinese cultures.

In 1979 the artist left Africa for the first time travelling abroad to Europe making important art and business contacts over the years.

First show in the United States was in 1981, featuring artists from his native country of Ghana.

In 1986 Ankomah moved to Bremen, Germany. He is still based out of the city.

The symbols used by Owusu Ankomah come from the Andrika culture.

For his artistic education the artist attended Ghanatta College of Art in Accra, Ghana.

Part of shows in the United States, Europe, and Africa.

Another theme is crop circles.

Price range information: Many works priced $5,000 to $25,000. Works mainly with acrylics.

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Artist of the moment……Andy Warhol and the Brillo Box…

{ May 21, 2013 @ 12:25 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Lets take a look at the artist who had the most work during 2012, Andy Warhol and his work with the Brillo Box.

A brief history of the box. The box was one of the first very large tasks accomplished by Andy Warhol and his assistant Gerard Malanga in the newly opened Silver Factory. Given this name as Warhol had most of the interior wrapped in aluminum foil by a lighting named Billy Lane.  The factory was a very large space with a total of nearly 5,000 square feet.

Warhol’s first well known series was the one with Soup Cans. The Brillo Box was his first attempt at moving into three dimensions.

Warhol loved to explore the idea of art where ever he looked. From works dealing with death and sometimes suicide, to flowers, to business Warhol enjoyed showing us how much art is involved in our daily lives.

Price range information:  Though the Brillo Box was a FAILURE at first with some collectors even cancelling their orders, the boxes had an outstanding return in the 2000s. From 2002 to 2012,  the average box went up slightly more than six times the price. Far better than a stock market return. The highest sale for a Brillo Box was $4.7 million dollars in 2008.

The boxes were made of plywood and then silkscreened  by Warhol and Malanga.

A very funny interview with Andy and a reporter who questions him about making the Brillo Box sculpture. How come you didn’t make something new? Are you just going to carry on Andy? Seriously….funny!

For a show at the Armory artist Charles Lutz was commissioned to make an appropriation of Warhol’s Brillo Boxes. The public was to take one home for free. I wonder if in 4o years this boxes might be worth 1 million dollars. Not bad!

Another artist who works mainly with Appropriations in his art. He uses reverse perspective to achieve some very unique results. The artist’s work is a wonderful mix of sculpture and painting.

I hope you enjoyed this look into one of Warhol’s most successful series!

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Artist of the moment photographer Eadweard Muybridge

{ May 20, 2013 @ 2:15 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Eadweard Muybridge was born in 1830 at Kingston Upon Thames located in England. Nearly everyone has seen an image of Muybridge who first came to fame with his photographs of Yosemite National Forest. Later he would become renown for his work with animals, horses in particular, and the use of stop motion photography. By using this photograhy Muybridge was trying to settle a bet as that if a horse was running, would all legs ever touch the ground at the same time.

He invented the first strip photography that was called a zoopraxiscopre. It was the precrusor to the perforated film.

In the clip below we visit Muybridge and his filming of a horse, his most renown work.

Another very interesting fact is that the Eadweard Muybridge found out his wife was having an affair. She shot and killed the man and was found not guilty in the court of law. His wife’s affairs lead him to commit a justifiable homicide.

price range information: Collatypes are the cheapest and can be had from $850 to $4,000. Photographic prints and plates range $1,000 to $85,000.

Over his career he produced more than 100,000 images.

More of Muybridge’s work with the horse and other animals.

Muybridge spent a great deal of time in the United States but eventually would move back to England and pass away there in 1904 at the age of 74 years old.

Muybridge influenced countless artists in their quest to capture the movement and fluidty of both animals and human bodies.

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Artist of the moment……Polly Apfelbaum

{ May 19, 2013 @ 3:01 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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In this clip Apfelbaum talks about feminism in her artwork. A question she thinks about but never answers.

In this clip we see the artist work on a signature floor bound installation.

Price range information: None available.

Polly Apfelbaum is a fantastic contemporary artist who has a similar style to many of the artists of the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 1970s. Polly Apfelbaum was born in Abington, Pennslvania in 1955. For her collegiate studies Apfelbaum attended the Tyler School of Art located in Philadelphia.

In her artistic statement the artist sees her art as a mixture of painting and sculpture. Apfelbaum uses a wide variety of medium including woodcuts and her floor bound installations which have many layers and variations of color, some more than 100 varieties, made up of individual cut petals of synthetic velvet. In addition Apfelbaum uses cut up photographs, bed sheets, and cloth.

Part of museum collections including the Whitney Museum of Art, The Museum of modern art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and museums in Europe.

Artist of the moment…..Hong Kong Street Calligraphy artist…..Tsang Tsou-Choi

{ May 18, 2013 @ 1:24 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Tsang Tsou-Choi was born in Guangdong, China in the year 1921 and was the most famous graffiti artist to come from Hong Kong. His style was a mix of calligraphy and graffiti.

Moved to Hong Kong after fleeing China in the 1930s. Started to do his signature graffiti in 1950s.

He seemed preoccupied with covering the public spaces with his calligraphy, claiming his grandfather owned the land. This caused his family to disown him and his wife to leave him.

Tsou-Choi spent a great deal of his life living in the streets. Much of artwork has been covered, but that which comes up at auction might include acrylic and ink on paper or even calligraphy on a public utility box.

He would spent countless hours walking the streets with brushes and ink moving very slowly on crutches.

A clever move was securing a contract with Swipe Away. In the television commercial he used the product to remove his calligraphy ink.

If the authorities removed his ink, he would soon replenish the work. Over the years he created between 50,000 and 60,000 works on lamps, utility boxes, and walls.

Over his career he never earned more than pocket money for art, but Sotheby’s held an auction for the artist and one work on board sold for slightly more than $7,000.

Seen as a public art star, the government sprayed some works with a clear protective finish to preserve them for future generations.

In this clip the public argues to preserve his calligraphy.

In this clip a short career retrospective of Tsang Tsou-Choi.

Tsang Tsou-Choi passed away in 2007 at the age of 85 years old.

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