Posts Tagged ‘oil painter’

Artist of the moment….Will Cotton

{ August 4, 2013 @ 4:59 am } · { Uncategorized }
{ Tags: , , , , , , } · { Leave a Comment }

Will Cotton is a contemporary American artist born in Melrose, Massachusetts and is renown for his work with the female figure. He has even painted works of celebrities including Katy Perry. For his artistic education Cotton studied briefly in France before attending Cooper Union and the New York Academy of Art.

price range information; Works range from $10,000 to $300,000.

Another favorite genre for the artist is food. Cotton loves to paint the delicious sweets we all love in wonderful landscapes made out of sweets. In these works the artist most times makes maquettes, small models, than paints from these models. He actually tries to capture a moment in time that a subject is changing, like a scoop of ice cream melting.

Started adding the female figure to some works in 2002.

Was recruited by Katy Perry to be the artistic director for her hit song California Gurls.

Cotton enjoys using consumer brands and well known imagery for his work. Sometimes borrowing ideas from board games.

Lives and works out of New York City.

In this clip we see the artist working on a print edition for Pace Prints.

Talk about contemporary art! In this clip we view some paintings by Will Cotton of pop star singer Katy Perry.

And Katy Perry talking about who picked who when it came to designing her album cover.

What an exciting artist that is working with set design and performance art, think Katy Perry, but the artist can also paint a wonderful decadent still painting full of chocolate and sugary confections for us to enjoy as well. What a well rounded artist!

D

Artist of the moment….photographer Wang Qingsong

{ July 24, 2013 @ 2:35 am } · { Uncategorized }
{ Tags: , , , , , , , } · { Leave a Comment }

In the gallery you may notice some works that resemble sculptures. These are photographs that make a social commentary by describing historic past events. This clip takes a further look at the subject.

Wang Qinsong is a world renown photographer born in Heilongjiang Province, China in the year 1966. Qinsong’s photography work deals with finding the humorous side in modern Chinese consumer culture.  Qingsong is a great example of a Pop Artist photographer. In addition to photography Qinsongs enjoys working with video and exploring performance art and working with collage.

In the series with the artist as a naked model he makes a statement about the Chinese consumer culture by grasping an object from the heavy consumer culture of the U.S. from Marlboro cigarettes to a cell phone.

Below we see the much acclaimed video work by Wang Qinsong that includes him getting hit  by fists. Its meant to show how we overcome obstacles in our lives but sometimes take a beating in trying to do so.

As a painter the first movement he joined was the Gaudy movement. For many works of the time period Qinsong was painting on velvet.

For his artistic education Qinsong attended the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts.

At first he was a painter and then came to work with digital photography and also oil paints.

An example of his thoughts on consumerism in China and the West’s influence was an image with the artist out front of many world recognized American brands such as Citibank and Starbucks shouting with a megaphone.

Included in shows at the Shanghai Art Museum and the International Center for Photography in New York City.

Wang Qinsong is based out of Beijing, China. Below an image of the artist.

wq10

Another great idea from Qingsong is to recreate famous paintings and make photographs from them. An example would be Manet’s work Dejeuner Sur L’Herbe. A photograph was made using Asian people to play the roles depicted in the painting.

Current record holder of a high price for a photographer in China is $864,000 for a work titled Follow Me. This work has a teacher in front of a chalkboard with english and chinese brand names.

D

Painters of Food……Contemporary artist Nancy Switzer….

{ April 6, 2012 @ 6:47 pm } · { Uncategorized }
{ Tags: , , , , } · { Leave a Comment }

 

The drawings in the gallery were done by her college professor in Rhode Island.

low price range: 10 by 20 inch work $6,000.

high price range: for 15 by 60 inch work around $13,000.

 

on line and land galleries:  Gallery 1261 in Denver, Colorado.   http://www.gallery1261.com

Clagget/Rey Gallery in Vail, Colorado.   http://www.claggettrey.com/artistDetail.aspx?enc=3suCzWGTXz5d6EBlADI3QV6S6A/oPUigTbTUjdKyw2I=

mediums used: oils

surfaces used: canvas

The artist is well known for painting glass containers, spoons, bottles, paper bags, and fish. The fish are great for their contrasting colors and light. I first became aware of the artist at a museum show and her paintings of paper bags. She looked at the paper bag as only an object with color. The background paint was just as thick as the thin paper bag. The artist uses as much artistic license as any realist in her quest for a great painting.

This artist had the most impressive painting I saw this month at Gallery 1261 in downtown Denver.  What attracted me most was the orange in contrast to the fish. The fish were placed so the painting seemed much larger than 10 by 10 inches. Thick and bold juicy paint that reminded me of a Sorolla painting.  Please check out  the reflections of light on the fish’s scales. I had never been so intrigued by a fish painting!  Its great to look back and see how someone painted fish nearly 400 years ago and what a current artist is producing. Her style is so expressive when compared to say a fish painted by Abraham Mignon.

The artist was born in 1958 in Freeport, Texas. She was born into a family of musicians.  Although her mom used to encourage her artistic talents, she decided to study music and planned to earn a living as a musician. Switzer didn’t believe you could earn a living as a visual artist.  Back in 1993 she played the violin with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.  In the early 1990s she moved to Colorado to follow her new vision of earning a living as a  professional visual artist.  Attended the Rhode Island School of Design and Virginia Commonwealth University after starting studying music at North Carolina School for the Arts. The artist earned a both a bachelors and masters degree for visual arts.

She credits her drawing teacher at the college in Rhode Island with the structure of her style. He once made his students draw a crumpled piece of paper for 20 hours. I have enclosed three drawings in the gallery of work done her professor, Akira Arita. He studied at the Royal Academy in Japan. His drawings remind me of the graphite master Stephen Graber.

Today’s art challenge:  Go to the fridge and pull out of stick of butter or margarine and paint. Make a palette using complimentary colors and don’t worry about blending edges, stick with strong shapes and bold color. Use simple geometric shapes.

Happy painting!

D