Diattaart Blog

this is an artist I have been seeing in many home decorating magazines. Known for his use of color with resin panels his large pieces really give life to the large rooms they occupy. This artist was born in 1979 in Indonesia but now makes his home in the Bay area and is turning heads in the art world. His works are mainly large wall installations.

http://www.briangrossfineart.com and check out his past exhibition titled Listening Sequence. His works are an emotional and color response to certain sounds and meditations. He received a MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California. He is on the visiting artists list at the school and makes his home in Oakland California. He has also done installations in the past that feature light, sound, and video.

Take some time to research his work and see some similarities between he and Elsworth Kelly, both use bold dramatic bright color to full effect.

keep painting!

Dan

Ken Price was born in 1935 and currently lives in Los Angeles. He is well known for working in a variety of mediums including ceramics, acrylics, and printmaking.  For me I enjoy his unique perspective on landscapes, vary high up and looking down or out across a large horizon.

He graduated from college from University of Southern California in 1956. He was inspired to try ceramics by visiting the small mexican villages on short trips from his home in California. In this period he made the happy curios series,  small ceramic pieces meant to be affordable art for everyone like he saw in Mexico..

Mr. Price had his first solo show in 1960, the art scene didn’t embrace the artist or his contemporaries at first as Los Angeles didn’t really have an art scene yet.   The artist now resides in Taos and Massachusetts were he continues to work as an artist with his son Jackson working with him as an assistant.

I hope this artist inspires you to try a new layout and view on a cityscape scene.

regards!

Dan

a great new contemporary artist who is great at installations and mixed media pieces. This artist works often in a series and my favorite series of hers is the bubble series. Badminton shuttlecocks, tennis balls, eyelashes, makeup applicators, and various other found objects  all come together to make small worlds which the artist herself calls a mix between Thomas Kinkade and a snow globe. I found them absolutely charming and was intrigued by them the first time I saw them.

The hair series was quite imaginative as well, in olden days people used to share locks of hair with loved ones. It was before photographs were the norm and the hair would be kept in a locket or piece of glass. The artist then took some hair and made her own modern day lockets! I love the creativity expressed here!

Her latest installation has to do with how much blood a woman looses during her menstrual cycle over her life time. Its quite amazing to think of and confront all of those pockets of blood. This artist is exciting and always thinking of fresh ideas.

She was educated and went to college in England. She currently has a studio in Florence, Massachusetts. Her website is http://www.sallycurcio.com

Jack Levine was born in 1915 and still practices art today. His work is a mix of caricature and realism. Painting mostly an aristocratic crowd at parties or large social gatherings, a social commentary and satire all in one. Among his favorite subjects mobsters and politicians.  In one of the articles about him he mentioned how he rarely if ever uses a model, rather relying on his memory and exaggeration to get his message to the viewer.

Born to Jewish Lithuanian parents Mr. Levine grew up in the south side of Boston. He attended Harvard and from 1935 to 1940 was part of the Works Progress Administration. He first exhibition in New York City was at the Museum of Modern Art. In this period of the late 30s to early 40s his career was forged on paintings that spoke about the corruption and scandal of local politicians and his very unique satirical way of painting was born.

In 1989 a film documentary was made of him called Feast of Pure Reason. This artist is one of my favorite of all time as he has taken something that is usually so serene and somber, a portrait of an aristocrat, and given it life and vitality by exaggerating parts of figures for a certain affect.  Also painting older/ long dead persons like Napoleon if he were alive today, so unique! Please take some time to research on your own this great american master.

Keep those pencils and brushes moving!

regards,

Dan

Robert C. Jackson is perhaps best known for his use of old crates with easily recognizable names of soda pops. He finds them at antique flea markets and the like. He is very creative and uses balloon animals or apples and sometimes even toys in his whimsical still life adventures rather than using people.

Mr. Jackson was born in North Carolina in 1964 and graduated from college with a degree in electrical engineering working for Motorola for 5 years after finishing school. He then quit engineering and worked as an associate pastor in Maryland for 6 years. He gave up this vocation in 1997 turned to painting full time and has been in exhibitions from coast to coast.

Please visit his own website  http://www.robertcjackson.com and if you visit Denver check him out at Gallery 1261 (street address) on Delaware a few blocks away from the Museum.

keep learning and painting!

regards,

Dan

In my opinion the best artist working in the field today.  I especially enjoy his mixed media pieces that incorporate letters, gold and silver leaf along with a really abstract design. He also does some great work in glass that involves layering of words that when compiled and laying on top of each other make a unique image.

Mr. Brown was born in 1968 in Dublin, Ireland. One of his favorite things to do as a young boy was to go and copy pages of an old biblical scripture. Each week the library turned over a new page. He went to London’s Roehampton School to further his study of calligraphy. His diploma there was in advanced calligraphy.

I highly recommend visiting his website as he has tutorials on different types of fonts and also please go to youtube and watch him perform magic. I love the bold and confident strokes he employs while writing!

This artist help me finally come up with my own unique signature.

regards,

Dan

Robert Indiana was born in 1928. He is best known for using letters and sculptures to say exactly what he feels! This artists work is included in many movies including the backgrounds of Austin Powers. In these movies he uses his LOVE moniker to help decorate the heroes home and most important room of his house, the bedroom.

Robert Indiana was born in 1928 in Indiana. He moved to New York City in 1954 and became fascinated with the world of pop art. He specializes in simple, bold , iconic images, and short words. Hope and Love are words he uses frequently.

In 2008 he made  a sculpture of Hope for President Obama. He donated all the proceeds of the posters, prints, t shirts, and bumper stickers to the campaign raising more than 1 million dollars for them.

In 1973 his work was used for the first time on a United States postage stamp. In 1964 Andy Warhol used him as the main star in a movie titled EAT about the artist eating a mushroom in a SOHO loft  for 45 minutes.

Mr. Indiana’s work is in many museums and corporate collections.

Robert Cottingham is a great artist specializing in typography and photo realism paintings. He mainly paints signs found in old America. Older hotel signs and store fronts. One recent series dealt with making paintings from individual letters found in these signs.  I had never thought just to specialize on one letter of the sign, and really loved his results. In my city of Denver these older signs are tough to find, but I found  Nashville, Tennessee the best place I have been to take pictures of older signs. My problem with the modern signs you see in Vegas is that the lettering style is so modern mostly using the Helvetica font.  As an artist I prefer the cursive letters, to me their abstractedness is just great.

Mr. Cottingham  established himself in the 70s alongside artist like Chuck Close and Richard Estes. He was born in 1935 and studied graphic design in college which led him to painting urban american street signs. He is one of the best printmakers to study from and develop your own style.  I know Mr. Cottingham sometimes draws with graphite on vellum but don’t know how the process finishes and will update this post as soon as find out his whole working process when making prints from sketch , transferred sketch, and finally adding color and pulling copies.

Hope this artist inspires you to try a painting with text, maybe the C of the McDonalds or P of Pizza Hut. Try something new and mix it up a bit.

keep those pencils and brushes moving and happy!

regards,

Dan