Art Share

Bren Luke has some really gorgeous line work and cross hatching:

I'm a big fan of Maurice Denis

I'm really into annunciation paintings. Here are some faves:

Duccio 1311

   Simone Martini 1333

Domenico Veneziano 1445

I don't really like the text in David Kramer's (http://www.artspace.com/david__kramer) work but his guache/ink/watercolor? work is really nice.

Some scrambled faves:

Blutch

Cecily Brown

Leela Corman

Georges de Feure

Lynd Ward

Lyonel Feininger

Charles Burns

Yoshitomo Nara

Salomón Huerta

Salomón Huerta

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Huerta was born in Tijuana, Mexico 1965. 

He is currently 49 years old, and worked at Paulson Bott Press.

He moved to LA to study art and went to both UCLA and Art Center.

Below is some of Huerta’s earlier work from the late 90’s.

The pieces are lithographs. Lithography is an extremely common printing technique that involves transferring ink from a polymer plate onto paper.

 Above are two of Huerta's series with several prints of different colors of: the backs of heads and simple suburban architecture.

I love Huerta's work for its cleanliness and simplicity, and for the skill of printing and choice of color that results in soft yet vibrant prints.

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Pia Fries

Early Life & Career

Born in Switzerland in 1955

Studied sculpture at the Lucerne School of Art (Germany) in 1980

After, she studied painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Gerhard Richter until 1986

Mentor-Gerhard Richter

Learned from Richter-

 Sometimes uses the squeegee to apply paint 

Not any specific theory of painting but the belief that painting was something that “you can do today.”

His Work

Abstract Painting (750-1)

1991

oil on canvas

260cm x 200cm

859-2 AB, China

1999

oil on canvas

55 1/8" x 39 3/8"

Fuji

1996

Oil, aluminum

11 3/8 x 14 9/16 in

Fries's Style

• Uses both photographed and silkscreened elements 
• Sometimes there is the use of piles of caked, troweled, scraped and smeared oil paint
• Paints on flat white ground to start 
• Uses on occasion the prints of botanical illustrations from the 17th century artist Maria Sybilla Merian on corrugated board 

Description of Her Art

• “Colors are swirled, poked, molded, and even bound together in rhythmic sequences that appear to be, for instance, like the sequences and activities of a microscopic sample, a stream bed, or topography from the air. They are subject to logical thought and exploration”. -New York Art World
• “Here images migrate into the compositional field and are forced to compete with hard-edged spaces and ripples of excavated carved-out patches of cardboard.  The result is that Fries presents a fixed image based on continuous variations.  Nevertheless, amid a deceivingly chaotic appearance there remains coherence in the artist’s choices that anchor each composition.” -Aurobora
• “Using palette knives, squeegees and extruding tools that she makes herself, Pia Fries loads paint in massive quantities onto snowy white panels, creating viscerally attractive topographies of striated swathes, rippling ribbons, melting puddles and bristly thickets of brush strokes. The paint itself seems to have absorbed the playful spirit of the artist and taken on a comically agitated life of its own. Call it abstract animism.” -New York Times
• “Kind of archaeology of the painterly gesture, showing its traces, memories and all the organized and distanced debris and ruins of a partially lost botanical past that is suddenly resuscitated in a conscious ambiguity." -Christine Buci-Glucksmann

Fries in Action

Her Art

Les Aquarelles De Leningrad, Series E-2 (2003)

oil paint and facsimile on panel 

31 1/2 x 23 5/8 inches

Les Aquarelles De Leningrad, Series E-2 (2003)

oil paint and facsimile on panel 

31 1/2 x 23 5/8 inches

TISCH DOVER II (2006)

oil and silkscreen on wood panel

27 1/2" x 19 5/8"

Seewärts (2011)

Oil and silkscreen on wood

105 x 77 cm

Falc (2007)

Color soap ground and spit bite aquatints with photogravure and roulette

87.6 x 64.8 cm

Masselina (2004)

oil paint and silkscreen on panel

19 5/8 x 15 3/4 inches / 19 5/8 x 15 inches

Rake (2007)

Color soap ground and spit bite aquatints with photogravure and roulette

34½ x 25½"

Why I Chose Her

I am gravitated to her work from the use of the paint, how it, in some cases, is extruded in ribbons, and others where it is scraped, pushed and pulled. She shows the various ways of utilizing and distorting the material, all representing her view on nature. The vivacity of the art also captures the viewer, drawing you into the composition. I love her experimentation with different mediums; it causes her to have a uniqueness about her work.

Bibliography

http://www.artstor.org/

http://www.crownpoint.com/artists/fries

http://www.artnet.com/artists/pia-fries/

http://www.magical-secrets.com/artists/fries/bio

http://piafries.com/

Stephen Westfall

Stephen Westfall was born in 1953, in New York. He is a painter, a printer, a teacher, and an art critic. He graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a Bachelors of Art, and a Masters of Fine Art. He began his career with painting. He was very interested in music and mosaics, both of which still inspires his art. He has named many pieces after musicians. He is particularly interested in jazz. Music is much more of an influence on Westfall’s pieces than other artists.

He started making prints in 2003, but the majority of his most popular prints were made in 2004. They are very similar to his paintings in that they are influenced by music and mosaics. His art is very geometrical. He plans out each of his pieces meticulously, carefully crafting both the positive and negative spaces, the colors, and the design. He etches on Plexiglass, and uses his plates to make stencils of his etchings, which he uses in his monoprints to make the edges very clean.

Westfall’s prints are very geometrical and yet abstract at the same time. They are meticulously planned out, but not all the lines are perfect and line up with each other quite right. This is of course on purpose, and his influence from free flowing music shows in those prints. The geometric part of his art comes from his love of mosaics and their carefully carved, even, and square pieces.

Jib
2004

Canaan
2004

This is evident in these pieces. The lines are all straight and the contrast of the colors is evident, but the patterns don’t all line up perfectly and the lines aren’t all exactly horizontal or vertical. They are both very geometrical and abstract at the same time.

Untitled
2004

Many of Westfall’s prints have color contrast like this one, but some of them also have parts where the background blends with the foreground. The difference between the darkly colored windows and the white windows attracts the eye.

Nine of Wand
2004

Besides color contrast, Westfall often uses positive and negative space in his prints. In this one, he colors the background and leaves the windows white, which gives it a 3D look, even though he is simply using squares and color contrast.

He enjoys working with windows. I think he likes their calculated outline but abstract nature. Here are two more.

Untitled
2003

Prospect
2004

Westfall is very logical in his approach. All his scratches in his plates are carefully calculated and measured. He often etches in things with shapes. You’ve already seen many of his window works, but he has also made a collection influenced by race flags.

Rally 2004

Miracle Mile
2003

Stephen Westfall’s prints immediately drew my attention. The precision impressed me, especially since I have trouble making such clean lines, and I’m also very interested in patterns. Patterns interest me a lot. His use of contrast and space to make his prints look 3D captured me. I would like to try and make some prints that are more clean cut, as well as make more patterns. I want to try and use space to attempt a more 3D print, though I’m sure it will take me awhile.

Cites:

http://www.aurobora.com/stephen-westfall/

http://hyperallergic.com/100674/stephen-westfalls-breakthrough/

http://www.shoprico.com/artists/westfall_stephen.html

http://www.durhampress.com/artist/stephen-westfall/#0_7

Mamma Andersson -- Research Project

Her life:

Mamma Andersson was born in Lulea, Northern Sweden in 1962. She liked to draw and paint when she was a small child, although no one else in her family was interested in art. She had two children while she was in college, and her long walks with them in strollers informed her landscape paintings and prints. Her location in the world also had a profound effect on her art, inspiring her to recreate not only Sweden's scenic landscape, but also theaters that she frequented in her hometown. She feels that her art relates to theater and film because her paintings tell a small and contained story, like one you might see in a theater. She often puts theaters in her artwork to further highlight this connection.

She was influenced by artists such as John E Franzen, Enno Hallak, and Dick Bengtsson.

Still life with vase, Enno Hallak, 1955 

Oil on canvas

Children, Dick Bengtsson, 1955 

Her art: 

Ackerland, 2012 

Oil and acrylic on panel 

42x90"

She often tries to give a sense of story and of mystery to her landscapes. In this painting she is working with oil and acrylic paints. Her use of texture and layering adds a sense of depth to the painting, as does the color. The juxtaposition of the solid, black suits to the textured, light grass highlights the figures despite the fact that they are set some distance away from the viewpoint. The clouds also show an impressive ability to recall images with a striking amount of realism, while still presenting an odd, ominous distortion. The image itself is curious, and leaves us wondering what exactly is going on in the image. Andersson often likes to work from photographs and then add her own ideas into her work, so perhaps this was a photo of a landscape, or a scene that she saw while living in Sweden, that she painted people over to add mystery. 

Abandoned, 2008

24(1/4)x36" 

Copper plate

As also shown in "Stump Up," Andersson likes to create images of devastation caused by humans. She is once again trying to tell a story by making those who look at her art think, "What happened here?" In her interview with Crown Point Press, she mentions that she purposefully made this image timeless. She remarks on how the damage to this room could be the result of the house being abandoned for many years. The color in this image plays into that idea since it is soft and worn, as one would imagine an abandoned room would be. The textures are also complex and varied, and I think she does a great job of capturing the natural patterns found in old wood. 

Faces, 2010

22x15(1/2)"

This print shows a less landscape-based side of Andersson's work. It, however, does stay with her theme of presenting a slightly ominous, mysterious image. She employs different techniques-- from thin, crisp etchings to fuzzy monotyping-- to show the diversity of the human forms in this image. The format of this print seems starkly different than her usual landscapes, but the strange, floating people look comes into play in some of her other prints, like the one below.  

Lou, 2010

15(1/2)x22"

Once again showing her knack for creating mysterious and thought-provoking images, Andersson plays with monotyping and copper etchings in this print. Walking a strange line between realism and absurdity, Andersson presents an image of an apparently handless child walking barefoot through the snow to a small shack. I like the way you can't tell whether the marks in front of the child are foot-prints or rocks. The texture she created on the trees is also very impressive. The yellowing of the edges makes it feel like the image is very old, and the different shades of white help create depth. 

Stump Up, 2008

24(1/2)x45(3/4)"

Like "Abandoned," this print shows devastation caused by humans. Andersson says that she tries to make her art interesting by showing the after-effects of something and leaving it up to the interpretation of viewers to decide what happened. I really enjoy how this print manages to be very simple yet still thought-provoking and full of interesting colors and textures. For example, if you look closely at the sky, you can see that there are many shades of whitish-orange, creating depth but not overwhelming the image. 

My feelings:

I really love art that is centered around landscapes, but it can be hard to make a landscape really interesting. Mamma Andersson knows how! I love that she can create such clean and still images that relay so much mystery and depth. Each one of her pieces is layered and complex, and it really does make me start trying to think up a story/explanation in my head. I'd love to learn how to add small accents to my landscapes that wouldn't overpower the stillness of the scene, but that would add interest and enigma. I also would like to learn from her use of negative space. 

Resources:

http://www.stephenfriedman.com/artists/mamma-andersson/artwork/ackerland

http://www.crownpoint.com/artists/2635/biographical-summary

http://www.magical-secrets.com/artists/andersson/video

http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/mamma-andersson/biography/

http://www.stadsauktion.se/1210/151963-enno-hallek-oljemalning/

http://gabrielle-bj.blogspot.com/2013/02/dick-bengtsson-och-tiden.html