Artist research
Semester 1
These artists I have been looking at this semester have helped a lot in my art practice, it's helped me develop my skills such as using different tools and mediums to create more organic art rather than being very precise like my work in second year.
Gerhard Richter
website: https://www.gerhard-richter.com/en/
Gerhard Richter's work ranged from oil paintings on canvas to old over painted photographs which included historical reference of photographs. His series ranges from documentary photography and landscape photography. The way he uses the paint to overlay the image just makes it so much more interesting to me. It's like he's blurring the image behind with paint. I want to try and do my own take on this kind of mixed media photography as I find this style interesting to look at and I like the contrast of photograph and the paint.
Miguel Leal
website:https://talentandco.com/en/artists/miguel-leal/
Miguel's work consists of painting and collages on top of a portrait photographs. His work focuses on the "darker side of existence". He has this fascination of the "grotesque" behind the veil of "formal beauty"His artwork connects with the viewers because he says it expresses the familiar and the intimate, "it's the other side of the human being of ourselves". I find the ideas and reasons behind his art really interesting. I like the fact he combines more than one medium into his work to create more of an alternative piece of art.
Derricks's work focuses on portraiture, with the use of both painting and photography. She creates layers by painting onto herself then photographs the image which she then adds more layers of paint onto the photograph. The body becomes both the object and the subject within her own work. The processes of the art she creates with the layers of paint to made a 3D effect with the paint. The style of her work makes me think it's expressive and organic, it doesn't look planned, she just creates brush strokes so loosely which is really what I love about her work.
Januz Miralles
Website:https://www.artistaday.com/?p=17760
Januz Miralles focuses more on illustration. He combines traditional painting with digital manipulation which then creates a surreal landscape "where human figures are woven into a shifting fog of textures and brush strokes". His work comes across mystical and mysterious, he work inspires me to see more than just a photograph. In my art practice, I want to combine a sense of emotion and using the paint as the main feature rather than the photograph.
Jesse Draxler
Website:http://jessedraxler.com
Jesse Draxler is a well known international artist, his pieces are a explorations of existentialism. He tackles the ideas of beauty, nihilism, sexuality and absurdity through deconstructed images that incorporate found photographs, abstract painting and digital design. The resulting pieces are dark, monochromatic and "visually challenging". His art workI find very intriguing, it looks like he focuses on black and white images only which ism part of the meaning behind his work of dark and mysteriousness. I Think that Draxler's work links to mine because of the way he masks the photograph and manipulates the image of the original photograph into some more "fearful".
Dessie Jackson
Website:https://www.dessiejackson.com/paper-1-1/
Dessie Jackson is a painter and Illustrator, who primarily concentrates on mixed media which includes oil paint ad photography. The major themes in Jackson's work includes femininity, sexual identity, representations of gender and identity, beauty and performance. Personally I think her work is one of my favourites with it meaning the identity of a person which strongly links to my own work. Her work has also given me ideas for ways I can use the paint.
Roseanna Jones
Website: rosannajones.co.uk
Rosanna Jones is a mixed media photographer, she mainly concentrates on collages and paint layering on top of her photographs. The past two years, I have been heavily influenced by her work. I have previously wrote about her in my blog. But I wanted to look at her again because she has similar ideas to what I'm trying to accomplish this year.
3 Theoretical examples that links to my art practice:
Francis Bacon
"I've had photographs taken for portraits because I very much prefer working from the photographs than from models...I couldn't attempt to do a portrait from photographs of somebody I didn't known..."-Francis Bacon
The reason I chose this particular quote is because he talks about why he uses photography which I think links to my art practice. Also saying he only takes photographs of people he know and things he knows which again, is the same for me. I only like to take photographs of people I know because I know there personality and what they're thinking. Which then I am able to portray that through my art work which is what Francis Bacon does. He uses the photographs of himself or his wife for example to portray what they're thinking.
Sigmar Polke
"By making pictures, you learn the many different properties of photography. I use those properties differently than, say, an advertising agency would, but we're both operating in the same reality. A face painted by Picasso occupies the same reality as a portrait by Stiegliz." - Sigmar Polke
Sigmar Polke is another artist that uses photographs in his practice. Similar to Francis Bacon, he's using photography as a base to start off his project. He sees that the photographs have detail. He has also incorporated photographs into his projects, making photography mixed media collages. This quote links to my artist practice because it's the way he views photographs, he sees it more than just an image, he sees it as art, which is what I see in art too.
John Stezaker
"When we look at the face, we assume that we are looking behind the face for a personality, I often create something that twists into an image of horror". - John Stezaker
My work is about personality of a person, using the photographs I have to manipulate the image and transform the image into something more meaningful to me. The emotions of the person in the images plays a big part in my art practice. I accomplish the same ideas as John Stezaker He manipulates the image into a collage, he understands the meaning behind the photograph he uses.