Posts Tagged ‘patterns’

Artist of the moment……..Jet Martinez

{ June 13, 2015 @ 1:20 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Jet Martinez is a popular illustrator and muralist who often works with floral and animal imagery. His work is similar to the Amate style of Mexican folk art painting. Animals and birds are painted with bright colors and mix of floral and botanical imagery.

Jet Martinez was born in Mexico. He often paints scenes that represent areas where he grew up. Martinez attended the San Francisco Academy of Art. Martinez is based out of San Francisco.

Below a look at a mural by Jet Martinez featuring flowers:

In this clip a great interview with Jet Martinez. He talks about what inspired him to become an artist:

Watch out for this question on Jeopardy! Who was the first artist in residence at Facebook? Jet Martinez is the answer. He talks about this experience in the second clip.

The first street artist who painted the Facebook headquarters was David Choe. Choe became a multi millionaire since he chose to be paid for his work in stock. Facebook has proven to be very lucrative for some artists!

The story of how Martinez came to be an artist is one that is repeated over and over. People have self doubt and often aren’t exposed to enough art at an early age. Its funny that his “a-ha” or epiphany moment came when he had a teacher whose work wasn’t very good. Martinez then thought if he can teach anyone can be an artist.

Below a link to the website of the artist:

http://www.jetromartinez.com/

D

 

Artist of the moment……..Tristan Eaton

{ May 18, 2015 @ 11:05 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Tristan Eaton is an American street artist renown for his work with patterns and the human face and figure. Tristan Eaton was born in Los Angeles, California in the year 1978.

Tristan Eaton is based out of Los Angeles, California. The artist is influenced by comic books, the skateboard culture, and the graffiti culture.

In this clip we view the artist at work at piece from February of 2015:

Below a link to the website of the artist. Many murals are shown here:

http://www.tristaneaton.net/

Price range information: Sorry none available.

In addition to painting wonderful murals for us to enjoy Tristan Eaton is also a toy designer. Here we visit his studio and catch a glimpse of some figures he designed. The artist has worked with the toy producer Kidrobot:

I love the design aspect of this artists work. He includes patterns and abstract designs that remind me of the way Chuck Close depicts the face. Very abstract but yet real at the same time.

D

Artist of the moment…….Abdoulaye Konaté

{ March 26, 2015 @ 11:29 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Abdoulaye Konaté is one the brightest stars of the African art scene. Konaté is renown for his work with figures and textiles.

Abdoulaye Konaté was born in Diré, Mali in the year 1953. The artist studied at the National Art Academy located in Bamako, Mali. The artist went on to study abroad and at the National Institute for Art located in Havana, Cuba.

The artist is now based out of Bamako. He works as a graphics designer and has worked for the National Museum.

Though his work is very abstract it is based on actual events and feelings. His work has explored thoughts on racism, religion, and A.I.D.S.

Konaté likes to use materials that are unique to Mali.

Price range information: Sorry none available.

Below a wonderful clip showing closeup views of works by the artist:

Having seen the much hyped work of El Anatsui at the Denver Museum, I am much more impressed by the works of Konaté as his works mix both realism and abstraction. Both have a similar sense of design, but for me Konaté’s work is bold and easy to understand.

D

 

 

Artist of the moment…..Wangechi Mutu…

{ December 17, 2012 @ 12:44 am } · { Uncategorized }
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Wangechi Mutu comes from Nairobi, Kenya which is located in Africa. She is known for her very elaborate collage and painting works which usually depict a person. I would say her style is Surrealism but done in a very modern way. A mixture of Hughie Lee Smith and Bev Doolittle. I have profiled Hughie Lee Smith before and he was the most prominent African American Surrealist painter. Below is an great example of his style.

hughie

Below is a clip showing works by Wangechi Mutu. Pay attention to the subtleties of her work. Look closely at the nose, it may be a leg. She is very creative in her portrayal of the female figure.

Another great selection of works by the artist.

Price range info:  Mutu has worked in acrylics which range from $25,000 to $135,000. Ink works range from $50,000 to $385,000.

Bev Doolittle’s work I am sure most viewers have seen at least one time in their life. She paints forests and landscapes but with hidden faces painted out of rocks and woodpiles. I enjoy Doolittle’s work as she has fabulous compositions which become necessary if you are trying to paint a face, but by using the various lights and darks of trees and rocks. Everything has to be place just so to make sense, but not so much that it looks is if the artist tried too hard. The image seems to have appeared “magically.”

Below is a great example of how Doolittle cleverly mixes land, snow, and horses in a very unique way from a composition standpoint.

Bev Doolittle 50

In her famous collages Wangechi Mutu uses a many materials such as medical illustrations, fashion magazine clips, pornography, glitter, and beads. She enjoys placing a variety of patterned textures in her figures.

The artist first came to the United States when she was nineteen yeras old. For her collegiate studies Mutu attended the  Cooper Union School for the Advancement of Arts and Sciences in New York city graduating in 1996. Mutu went on to earn a masters degree from Yale University.

Mutu has been part of several prestigious at locations such as the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Tate Modern in London, and the Studio Musuem located in Brooklyn, New York.

Wangechi Mutu now lives and works out of New York city.

This artist always fascinates me with her Surrealistic outlook of the world. She can take trash and found objects and transform them into works of magic! She is very inspirational and her characters are all very unique and whimsical.

D

Artist of the moment…..Yasmine Esfandiary…..

{ September 19, 2012 @ 9:46 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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The artist was born in 1955 in Tehran, Iran. She was born in Iran and now lives in France.  She attended college in Paris, France studying at the L’ecole Supierieur D’Art Graphique and Photographique. She also attended school in the United States at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Colorado Institute of Art.

First solo exhibition was in 1991 in Denver, Colorado.

The artist is very schooled in a variety of mediums.  Most of her works include acrylics, glitter, charcoal and are on both canvas and paper.

I enjoy this artist for her very unique blend of western and eastern cultures that appear in her paintings. She has been well schooled around the globe in art and her artwork shows this wonderful blend of cultures. I enjoy looking at floral scenes more than any other genre. From the highly detailed paintings that include vases and perhaps a table that Ben Schonzeit might produce. To the pictures that use the flower line as a fun inorganic shape and contrast them with other shapes. The artist has so much freedom in this more contemporary type of work because the goal isn’t to recreate an image, but rather to enjoy the shapes and colors that the flowers bring to the viewer.

Other artists celebrating the shape and colors of flowers with concentration on flat shapes and bright explosive colours would be Alicia LaChance. LaChance even uses fresco techniques in her paintings. My favorite artist working in this style of flat shapes and patterns is Robert Kushner. If you get the chance to see his works in person, DON’T PASS IT UP.  In many works he takes one flower and will paint the outline using acrylics over say a sheet of music. Then he takes his artistic liberty even further and adds glitter, gold leaf, silver leaf, mica, and many other materials finally enclosing them in muliptle layers of resin.  This resin makes the glitter appear to glow as the viewer moves about the picture.

I love flower paintings of all types, but when I look at those works that aren’t concerned with realism or depicting a certain still life arrangement, it makes me appreciate the many mediums used by the aforementioned artists and their ability to design what they think is a great pattern and design. They use the most their creativity can offer and I can imagine them painting their flowers with a smile and most importantly it seems they have a lot of fun when painting in this style and manner.

 

High price range: $10,000

Low price range: $5,000

Try a floral work in which you concentrate on line and color and not just painting what is right in front of you, EXPERIMENT and go FLAT!

D

Artist of the moment…..Beatriz Milhazes…

{ August 1, 2012 @ 8:47 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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This artist constantly excites me with her new found shapes and fabulous color combinations.

In this brief interview the artist talks about using nature in her work among other items.  She also talks about how inspiring it is to be surrounded by the beauty that is Rio De Janiero, Brazil.

A clip showing a show given by the artist in 2008 at James Cohan Gallery in New York City.

The artist’s work is bursting with fun shapes that are different than exist in most abstract art. Loosely painted, but with a very high level of control. I am reminded of the many thousands of hours I spent making organic shapes as a child with my grandparent’s Spirograph set. Some of the shapes are indeed similar to what you could create using a spirograph piece of plastic and your favorite ink pen or colored pencil.

When I further study the shapes the spirograph made, its very similar to the shapes you see when you let the screen saver run. Or if you are playing music and let the screen saver come on you get the same free wheeling organic shape style.

The artist works in a variety of mediums such as plastic, acrylics, oils, and screenprints.

High price range:  $1.4 million got THE BLUE ELEPHANT. A clip from the auction is below. I highly recommend going to an art auction, its very calm that very exciting!  The clip is from Christie’s Auction house.

low price range: If you are lucky you might find a screenprint for less than ten thousand, most start close to that price.

On line and land based galleries: James Cohan Gallery in New York, City.   http://www.jamescohan.com/artists/beatriz-milhazes/

The artist was born in Rio De Janiero, Brazil in 1960. Her father was a lawyer. Her mother an art historian.

The artist is included in many public and private collections including the Guggenheim, the Musuem of Modern Art in New York City and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

From a contemporary art standpoint the artist reminds me of Rex Ray and Alicia LaChance. Great use of patterns in their design with botanical and floral shapes thrown in the mix.  Also modernistic is that sometimes it seems as if the viewer is looking at a flower from directly above it.  A new way of seeing a still life! Similar to the Dutch Artist Kenne Gregoire, he paints still life pieces also from above.

The artist uses a mixture collage and acrylic paints.

The artist has also worked on set designs for a well known dance company.

I enjoy this artist for her bold use of colors and the many new and exciting shapes for the viewer in her work.

Happy painting!

D

She went to college in Rio De Janiero, Brazil where she also currently lives and works.