Mao Yan is a wonderful artist born in Xiagtan, Hunan Provence, China in the year 1968. Mao Yan enjoys painting the figure in a way that reminds me of Lucien Freud. Freud like Mao Yan was not out for an exactly likeness, rather an emotional snapshot of the person. Also both artists use unusual compositions in working with the figure.
Yan was influenced by Goya. Its easy to see with his great use of contrast and dark colors.
Price range information: Works range from the high figures to over $1.4 million dollars at auction.
Mao Yan works in oils, watercolors, and pastel.
For his artistic education Mao Yan attended the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Yan is also a teacher working at Nanjing University of Art also located in Beijing, China.
The artist was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in the year 1955. He is best known for his animated film shorts. His process is a far longer than doing just a normal drawing. First Kentridge draws the image, then takes a picture of it on film for one to two seconds. He then erases the part of the image and restarts the same process. Draw and erase, draw and erase, draw and erase, until he has enough images to make a film.
His parents were both lawyers who represented the victims of apartheid. It gave him a unique view of life. In South Africa non whites were second class citizens. Kentridge is of European heritage. It helps a great deal to review the political and social unrest taking place in his country when viewing his works. Similar to the very emotional charcoal works of Kathe Kollwitz.
Kentridge grew up in South Africa attending the Johannesburg Art Foundation in the 1970s. The artist went to college at the University of Witwatersand, South Africa earning a degree in politcal science. Kentridge also studied theater in Paris, France. His partner in his theater productions is the HandSpring Puppet Company. Kentridge designs and produces the backdrops used in these productions.
Check out his great puppet design in this short clip.
Kentridge went to school to learn how to become an actor. As he later states he was just terrible and it and made his peace with it. He accepted he was a great producer of images and a great visual artist.
In this clip see Kentridge talk about his process of drawing then erasing as the means to create his stop -animation films. They are quite skillfully done with loads of imaginative ideas such as a chair turning into a table or a cow taking a shower/ bath! Very unique indeed!
In this unique clip watch the artist as he draws and paints himself then walks away the both of him! When I saw this clip I thought about Salvador Dali. Its called “Invisible Mending” and was made in 2003.
The artist makes some incredible linocuts. He has wonderful compositions with exciting lines. The stop animations are very lively and I would enjoy seeing them on a movie size screen. They might be something Walt Disney and Steve Jobs might have come up with on a collaboration.
High price ranges: The artist has sold an oil titled Anti-Waste for $414,000. His charcoal record is $90,529. Drypoint record is $91,000. Watercolor record $128,000.
Low price range: Photography works can be found for less than $1,000. Etchings start $1,000 to $2,000.
This artist is so contemporary and always trying out new mediums its hard to keep track of all of his accomplishments.
The artist isn’t a full time actress, but played herself attending a gallery opening on the television day time drama Young and the Restless.
Hear in the artist’s own words about how she goes about creating her artwork.
Delia Brown was born in 1969 Berkeley, California. The artist now lives and works out of New York City.
High price range: Oil painting went for $78,000. Watercolor for $10,800.
Other prices: Graphite works from $1,000 to $5,000. Acrylics between $1,000 to $6,000. Most watercolors are around $10,000.
She has attended a few colleges in her art education. She studied at the University London, Goldsmith’s College. Bachelors of art degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Masters from UCLA. Stepped into the national spotlight when the art world paid homage to the graduating class of UCLA in 2000.
Delia Brown is a very versatile artist working with watercolor, gouache, acrylics, and oils.
This artist certainly maximizes her skills and creativity. She got to play herself on a soap opera ( Young and Restless the clip is above!) And her character was going to an gallery opening. And her paintings, she is similar to Rembrandt in that she has painted numerous amounts of self portraits over the years. She enjoys painting herself and her friends hanging out and partying in well known places such as Beverly Hills, California.
She tries to portray an upper class lifestyle, perhaps similar to all of the reality television shows such as Housewives of Orange County or Housewives of Beverly Hills. This artist had the idea to portray this lifestyle long before it came to television. She should collect a royalty perhaps!
She is very creative and for quite sometime pursued a singing and entertainment career in the hip hop music world.
She also studied a type of acting called the “Stanislavsky Method” of acting. It involves pouring your emotions into acting. This helps her to create her scenes and paintings with her friends. She has also done performance art, both live and thru video.
Another example of her creativity, she collaborated with actress Hollis Witherspoon and invented a fictional woman named Chelsey Green. Delia Brown makes the paintings and than Hollis acts them out. Here is a short clip producted by Delia Brown with Hollis playing Chelsey Green. This was made in 2006.
This artist is so creative, I hope it inspires someone out there to try a different form of a creativity such as ceramics or better yet performance art. Other painters who also have made great performance and video works would be Kara Walker and of course Robert Kushner.
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