Diattaart Blog

This artist turns 80 years old today. The birthdate in the wikipedia is wrong as it was just on the BBC news last night. She has a brand new show opening at the Tate modern. She began as an impressionistic artist and then found her voice in op art. She enjoys making paintings that overload the optic senses and are disorientating to the eye. I enjoy her work as their is so much movement and rhythm. The artist was educated at Goldsmiths College and also the Royal Academy.

Peter Sedgley, another British Op Artist lived with the artist in the 60s and helped her to create SPACE, providing amounts of studio space to artists.

During the peak of the movement in the 60s people used to regard her work as happenings and the paintings inspired people to take hallucinogens to help enhance their experience.

The artist starting using color in these type of paintings in 1967. She was the first woman to receive the honor of representing Britain during the Venice Biennale.

The artist is represented by the Pace Gallery.

This artist was born in 1970 in the Bahamas. He attended both Croydon and Goldsmith College. The artist had a big breakthough in 2004 as he was commissioned by the national portrait gallery in London to paint actress Dame Judy Dench. He painted her in a way that thrilled and flattered her. The artist paints in an old fashioned manner with traditional paints and techniques.

Many of the artists portraits are closeups done with a plain white background. I really enjoy the artists landscapes of his country of birth.  They make one want to get to the beach as quick as possible.

The clip below is a near 6 minute time lapse of the artist working on a piece that took around 3 months to finish.

keep learning!

D

I really enjoy looking at graffiti and street artist, the color is great and the message (when it can be read) are really bold statements.This artist was born in London in 1973.

The artists legal name is Ben Flynn, a street artist from London in the U.K. He really came on the scene while working on some collaborations with the street artist Bansky.

He was responsible for prints of street artists such as Banskly and Jamie Hewlett. The British Prime Minister David Cameron presented a piece made by the artist to United States president Barack Obama.

Below are some youtube clips about the artist

and more

try doing a piece with only graffiti lettering and some abstract shapes perhaps in the background!

always keep learning !

This artist is one of my favorite figure painters.   The artist was born in Brooklyn in 1953 is a widely collected modern artist.  The artist is influenced by all sorts of mass media, a modern pop artist so to speak, television, hollywood, movies, and comic books heavily influence the artist. He came to fame in the 1980s with a series titled Men in the Cities which portrays men in suits either dancing or in agony, its up to the viewer to decide.

The artist relies on a stark white dark contest with very few middle tones.

The artist studied not only drawing, but sculpture and even studied abroad in Italy. After becoming involved in an art co-op he moved to New York and immersed himself in the underground art scene.

Although I like the end result I am not a fan of using the projection and tracing the figure. I like the imperfections that an artist adds. Also his assistants do much of the work in his lithographs and paintings. Not a fan of that either.

That being said his art has an easily recognizable style and makes the viewer think.

below is a clip about the men in cities pieces…

some more of his pieces are featured here…

this artist is simply amazing. If you live in the Denver area its well worth the drive to Gallery 1261, on 1261 Delaware Street, to see his works in person.  On display is a bird, its partially painted but looked like the artist used a real birds claw and feather in the design. On display also was an amaryllis plant that had 4 different paintings of the flower grouped together. The artist has a real unique sense of design and paints clothing and interiors at a master level.

The artist was born in Ohio in 1946.  Over the years his style has become tighter and tighter, yet the artist insists he isn’t concerned with the deeper meanings of headless people, he is interested in making visually exciting paintings.

If you are in the Denver area go check these pieces out in person, art is always more impressive live!

D

this artist was born in 1943 and I might classify his work as pop art mixed with eastern political actions. The artist emigrated to the states in 1975.

Officially his work is part of the SOTS art movement. Soviet Nonconformist Art. The movement combined socialism, pop art, and dadism. The movement was also founded by Komar and Malimid.

The artist lives and works in Moscow as well as New York City.

This artist was a street artist but is now known worldwide. After filling New York City with her wheatpaste images. Her real name is Caledonia Dance Curry.

The artist studied art and design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and started doing street art in 1999. Swoon draws inspiration from the German Wood Block printers and Indonesian  and Indonesian Shadow puppets. The artist places her wheatpaste cutouts in doorways, alleys, under bridges so that shadows play a role in the finished pieces. Many times she uses friends and family for her portraits.

On a personal note, I have seen her prints now showing up on the internet artnet.com online auctions. I enjoy this artist for her bohemian lifestyle and willingness to push art on those people who wouldn’t enter a gallery to see it.

Below is the artist explaining her work at the Museum of Modern Art.

A ten minute clip about the artist on Walrus TV

Try a paste out, or a cut out today. Go look at wall of graffiti if you are lucky enough to have one where you live. Take it and try to decipher the writing and learn from the style.

The artist also has a book out documenting her trips  around the world and her extraordinary lifestyle.

keep learning!

this artist passed away in 2006 but left a great body of work. He painted mainly abstractly with an emphasis on color but and simple geometric shapes. He was born in 1936 in Des Moines, Iowa. He used color in a response to what was around him be it nature, music, or the city. A current artist who paints this way is Homare Ikaeda.

He started the Rotation series in 1963 which focused standard geometric composition which used varied colors. The shapes bended and twisted with a stark contrast between light and dark shapes.

The artist is classified by most accounts as an abstract expressionist or lyrical abstractionis.

The artist died at age 69 from cancer.

try a simple fun painting, limit yourself to one color and its compliment. Say Yellow with a purple, or orange and blue. Express yourself!

this artist was born in France in 1969  and as mentioned in the youtube clip on the previous lecture about Faile, this artist was very inspiring to the upcoming newer street artists.

As an artist I enjoy the boldness, directness, of this style.  And his work have so much motion in them.  Not as much movement as a Vasarely or Riley Op Art  painting, but for a realist painter the movement is very extreme. Its as if you can feel the fellow having a nervous breakdown moment when you try to concentrate on the piece as a whole.Since a very young age the artist concentrated on capturing movement of people. Notice the piece with the terrorists, the are running across the canvas and in the middle are bullet holes. Very interesting indeed!

The artist is a gallery and commercial success. He has worked with BMW, Nike, and Adidas. Some athletes he has worked with are Kobe Bryant and Prince Naseem.

A link to the artist’s website and gallery are below.

http://www.wkinteract.com/

Here is  youtube clip showing WK working with Nike and Kobe Bryant its great to see him action.

This is a great artist to learn from.  His work can be pure street, or pure high art. Try to get some variation in your work as well. Don’t paint the same old boring greys. Try to be bold and from the beginning concentrate on getting the mood you want in your piece rather than just a  heartless rendering.

If I was going to compare this artist to someone already in the fine arts field it would be Lucien Freud.

cheers,

Dan