Carol Young is a Northwest Coast artist from the Haida (Eagle Clan) born in the year 1953. A member of the Haida nations living out of British Columbia, Canada. The artist is renown for her portraiture work and she not has made more than 200 works out of clay, she also has done celebrity works such as Elvis and Willie Nelson.
In 2000 she began sculpting. She never had any formal training, she just did it! She enjoys using her characters as means of expressing the Haida culture and tradition.
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For her artistic education attended the Freda Diesing School of Art. Whilst at the school she has been able to learn from masters of the her craft including the great carver Bob Dempsey.
Favorite item to carve are portrait masks.
A link to the website of Carol Young. Very cool and relaxing music here! Awesome site:
James McNabb is a contemporary artist who creates spectacular cityscapes using wood. McNabb also creates unique furniture designs. He likes to call his style “sketching with the band saw.” Each piece is individual cut with a band saw and the artist uses scrap wood for his artwork.
Some pieces might have only one type of wood, for instance black walnut. But many works of art include many varieties of wood, thus giving more eye candy to the viewer.
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In this clip we see some works by the artist including his renown circular cityscapes and his furniture designs are included.
I love cityscapes and had never seen them portrayed in wood. Very interesting!
Amos Supuni was a shona that was actually born in Malawi in the year 1970. Months after he was born his family moved to Zimbabwe. Got involved with sculpting as a teenager thanks in part to a Catholic nun who worked hard to furnish supplies for the youngsters. His breakthrough happened in large part due to the Catholic Silvera House Center which trained people for jobs in the community.
Whilst living with the nuns Supuni was able to travel to another African country named Tanzania. Here he learned how to produce prints and to work with fabrics and the art of batik.
The artist enjoyed teaching the art of sculpture to others.
Amos Supuni had came to the United States and lived in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The artist was killed whilst looking for food to feed his family in 2008. The artist was in the country of Mozambique. He was 38 years of age. It was a shock to people that he passed away so young.
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The fact that this artist died so young should inspire us all to work hard and savor every moment of life!
Ilya Kabakov is a contemporary artist born in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine in the year 1933. Shortly after his birth his family left the Ukraine for Uzbekistan in order to avoid persecution by the Nazi party. The artist is a painter and also creates installations. To date he has made over 150 installations.
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One recurring theme of the artist was flies.
For his artistic education Ilya Kabakov attended the Leningrad Institute of Arts. Kabakov graduated from the Surikov Art Institute.
Started off his art career by illustrating children’s books. This happened in the late 1950s.
It was against his government’s wishes to allow anyone to be an artist as he had hoped, illustrating children’s books was the only way an artist could exist in his land.
In the 1970s Kabakov began to experiment with Abstract- Expressionist. Towards the end of the decade Kabakov even tried conceptual art. This group is now seen as a great force, but at the time the artist’s involved were prohibited from showing their works in public. He group was a big break through for conceptual art in Russia. At the time the government arm the KGB looked into the affairs of the artist.
In this clip we view a show given for Ilya Kabakov in 2012:
The artist represented Russia at the Venice Biennale in 1993.
Ilya Kabakov is now based out of Long Island, New York in the United States.
Henri Cartier-Bresson is widely considered the Father of Modern Photojournalism. Bresson was born in Chanteloup, France. A city within 30 miles of Paris, France in the year 1908. The artist was also a talented painter and draughtsman.
price range information: Works range from $5,000 to $60,000.
The artist was a student of Andre L’Hote. Below an example of L’hote’s style, this very modernistic looking painting is a seascape titled “Port of Bordeaux, France.” L’Hote ran his own academy based out of Paris, France.
In 1931 he started to take photographs. He visited both Europe and Africa.
Went to New York City to study with Paul Brand. Brand has been featured here before and is renown for his film “Manhattan” showing the life of a person living in Manhattan, New York in the early 1920s. Here is a clip from their documentary. Very interesting to see how New York City has grown over nearly one century.
Whilst in New York City studying film making Cartier- Bresson would work with a French film maker named Jean Renoir. Renoir was a director and ceramic artist.
In 1932 Henri Cartier-Bresson had his photographs published for the first time.
Cartier- Bresson would go on to document many important occasions including the coronation of the King of England. Other events include the struggle of Ghandi against his government. Before the internet and Flickr.com Cartier-Bresson was the world’s eye traveling to far off places including Japan and China.
In this clip we view a great montage of works by Henri Cartier-Bresson:
The artist was a prisoner of Nazi Germany during 1940 before escaping. He then documented the freedom of the French people by the Allied Forces.
In 1975 the artist started to paint again.
Henri Cartier- Bresson passed away in 2004 at the age of 95 years old.
To close we view the artist walking about the streets and shooting photographs. Nothing fancy here, just get out with no assistants and go to work! The clip is in French, but still great to see the master out working!
Fake is a street artist from Amsterdam, the Netherlands born in 1980. Fake works in prints and stencil work on walls. The artist has been using street art to bring humor to people’s lifes. He grew up in Lelystad, the Netherlands.
Started to tag at age fourteen.
Fake is a self taught artist.
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Has been in art shows in Europe, Iran, and the United States.
Here we view a time lapse of FAKE working on a stencil titled “Doggystye.”
Henri Matisse was born in the year 1869 in Le Cateau-Cambresis, France. The artist was a founding member of the Fauvist movement. Matisse was modernist in this technique and had a masterful sense and use of colour in his art. He originally attended college to become a lawyer. The artist then quit his goal of becoming a lawyer and wanted to become an artist. Matisse attended the Academie Julian and then the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
A key influence on the artist was the “primitive” or “naive” style of artwork that paid more attention to bright and bold colors rather than drawing or painting something in a highly realistic manner.
Henri Matisse was part of the Chicago Armory Show of 1913, already 100 years old.
Spent time in Paris and the southern countryside of France.
His hometown of Le Cateau-Cambresis, France has a museum built in honor of the artist. A link to this website is here:
At auction a work of the artist sold for $25 million dollars.
As you know I enjoy doing paper collage. In this clip we see Henri Matisse working on a paper collage! The quality isn’t the best, but I gathered some inspiration from it:
And in this clip a great selection of paper cut works by Henri Matisse:
In this clip a montage of works by Henri Matisse. I enjoyed the selection of portraits included in this clip:
In this clip we see the artist doing a sketch. He speaks in French, but still great to watch!
Henri Matisse passed away in 1954 at the age of 84 years old.
Part of many prominent museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Ron Gorchov is an American artist working in an abstract expressionist style born in the year 1930 in Chicago, Illinois. Ron Gorchov is renown for his abstract paintings done on curved and altered canvases. The artist was part of a group from New York that specialized in action painting. The theme of action painting was to disregard any conventional ideas about composition and design.
price range information: Works range from $4,000 to $ 40,000.
For his artistic education Ron Gorchov attended many universities including the University of Mississippi located in Oxford, MS. The artist also attended Roosevelt College and Art Institute located in Chicago, IL. Gorchov also attended the University of Illinois.
Began taking art classes at the age of fourteen years old at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Winner of Guggenheim Fellowship.
Winner of an award for painting from the National Endowment of the Arts.
In this clip we visit a show with the great James Kalm. The show took place in 2012.
And we visit an older show from 2008 with James Kalm:
Ron Gorchov is based out of Brooklyn, New York.
The artist is included in prominent collections including the Whitney Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, and the Museum of Modern Art.
Xue Song is a contemporary artist born in Anhui, Anhui Province, China in the year 1965. Song attended the Shanghai Drama Academy where he studied stage art. Song worksare in fact collages made with mixed media and blends landscape painting, calligraphic text, and small figures that are called Zen figures in his work. The work by Xue Song is very layered and intricate. The artist also is an avid printmaker.
price range information: Works range from $10,000 to $330,000.
The artist has a unique connection to fire and many works contain paper that has been in a fire. Years ago his studio suffered a fire. The artist retrieved some of the remains of his charred paintings and ashes. Since this incident he will burn paper on purpose as he sees ashes as part of the cycle of life. The ash is a rebirth of sorts.
Xue Song is a huge fan of calligraphy and feels its the art that the Chinese people have taken further than any other type of painting. The artist has taken some aspects of calligraphy and mixed it with poetry. One artist that Song pays homage to is Feng Zikai. Zikai was among the first to use cartoon like black outlines of figures. Very reminiscent of the Pop Artist Roy Lichtenstein. Below a classical example of Zikai Feng’s style of art. Zikai Feng lived from 1898 to 1975.
By blending classical verse and text, landscapes, and the use of figures Xue Song not only references the past but is able to modernize his work as well. I also love the variety of textures used by the artist, especially the ash.
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