Jen Stark

LAST ONE!!!
Alright so for my last artist I figured I would need to go out with a bang, and who better to do that than Jen Stark and her fantastic explosions (often of color)?

Counter Cosmo

So on her website, she has drawings and animation "pieces" on display, too, but I was like "Shoot! I love her sculptures and it will be her sculptures this blog looks at!" So let's look!

First off, as anyone would guess who knows me or who has read almost any of my blogs, I love color, and THESE HAVE SO MUCH COLOR!

Microscopic Entrance

Who would have thought about taking a ton of colored paper and making sculptures out of it like she did? I like the form of the sculptures and the rhythm and pattern in them. Their 3D quality complements the bold color schemes nicely.

Radial Reverie

 I so wish I could see these in real life and be able to look at them from angles other than what the pictures show. I would really want to touch them, though. It would be like when you have a book and run your thumb across the pages as they flip from back to front,... and back again.

Sunken Sediment

 I could not find it on the site I was looking at for her, but I want to know why? Why this, why this paper, why these colors? How did she come up with this idea?

Speed of Light

Anyways, I actually have enjoyed looking at all these different artists this past summer, and hope you did and will do, too. Signing off. :)
-Maria

http://www.jenstark.com/index.php  <-- check it out!! :)

Andrew Salgado

So my next, and second to last artist is Andrew Salgado. He does a lot of portrait paintings. He uses very loose and bold strokes. I like pieces like theses because it almost looks like the strokes just HAPPENED to come together and create a recognizable form. I realize there is a lot more planning and intentionality in the process than that, but the looseness of the painting can make it look like it happened by chance. 

Fracture

Though in actuality I think Salgado used broad strokes to serve another purpose. In his paintings there seem to be a lot of angst and tension, and the chaotic nature of the loose brushstrokes seems to add to that sensation. The loose, bold brushstrokes, as well as the dripping paint, and even the areas that look unfinished-- they all add to this chaotic feel of his paintings. To be honest for that and for some of the paintings of his that I did not post on this blog, his works make me feel pretty uncomfortable. And I would not be surprised if that was the goal.

The Opposite of Intention

According to his artist's statement on his website, these pieces have to do with identity and self-discovery. He says, "I ask the viewer to consider the technical aspects of my painting, but also the metaphorical role that media assumes in my work, and finally the relationship of my paintings to a greater narrative and mythology, in which each subject is related to ideas of psyche and convalescence." Whew! That is intense! He also says that his "practice explores the correlation between the concept of masculinity and the properties of the medium". That's a lot deeper than I originally thought.

Carnivores II

The more artists I have looked at and the more often I've found their artist's statements, the more I realize just HOW MUCH an artist's statement can add to the understanding of a piece. It's like it has a purpose or something. :)

-Maria

http://www.andrewsalgado.com/headerinfo.htm  <-- check it out!

Emmy Star Brown

47 down, 3 more to go!!

Okay, so again, breaking from the norm, and as one of my final artists I decided to look at Emmy Star Brown. Apparently she takes old windows and redeems them in a way by cleaning them up and drawing fun, pretty designs on them. She uses different sharpies, which goes along with the Sharpie campaign she's doing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq0cMQfgaus&feature=player_embedded)

Black Heart

According to the video, for her dad "one of his passions was finding salvaged things." She says that this was a big influence on her and is seen translated into this art of hers. In the video she also says how she likes the old frames juxtaposed with the newer, fancier, "controlled" drawings on them.

Dancer

I like the look of these a lot. Even though the designs, themselves, can be rather intricate, there is a simplicity about them as a whole. I think in this case the empty space in the glass does a lot for each piece in balancing them out and adding to the grace and elegance of the designs.

Swan

The "Black Heart" and "White Pinwheel" are cool designs and the fact that they are on one panel gives them a simpler look. But at the same time, I like the added interest that the pieces where the design spans across multiple panes give, like in "Swan" and "Dancer."

White Pinwheel

I admire her freedom of expression seen in her window paintings. I usually think too much about who, what, when, where, how,  instead of just letting myself make it as I go.

-Maria

http://www.emmystarbrown.com/?page_id=1561  <-- check out her website! It's really worthwhile!

Eileen Downes

So to mix it up a little, my next artist, Eileen Downes, does "torn-paper paintings." This technique gives the pieces a mosaic feel, and seems very similar to the tissue paper pieces of the artists I have looked at previously on this blog (which I highly recommend looking at if you have not already). 

On her website Downes says that she works with the colors and words that are already on the torn pieces of paper. That is really cool. Not only can she express a message through the actual images that are created, but she notes how she can reinforce the message through the visible words, too.

Plum-Colored Pumps

I like the look of the pieces, not just the fact that they look like mosaics, but that they do not look perfectly "clean." As seen particularly in pieces like "Water Lilies" and the butterfly piece above, the edges of the actual picture are not clean cut. The petals and leaves go off the "edge" and the same with the butterfly's wing.

Water Lilies

I wanted these to be extra large so you (and I) could get a better look at them. I wish I could have seen them in real life. There would have been so much texture that this photo of the piece doesn't do justice to showing. In regards to specifically where she gets the paper that she uses for the collages, on her site she says, "Often I use unusual collage materials such as band-aids, gum and candy wrapers, hierloom family photos and sentimental letters from which to create my layered images."That's cool. :)

-Maria

http://www.eileendownes.com/home.html  <-- check out her sight! I found her info and pictures on it

Sharon Johnstone

So my first (and potentially only) photographer that I will feature on this blog is Sharon Johnstone. She tends to take very close up pictures of various subject matter, resulting in a cropped in, abstract-feeling image.

Oil and Water Abstract

She has done quite a few close-up photographs of water droplets, or water interacting with other things, like oil. As Johnstone expresses on her site, the shapes and colors of the water and oil mixture are certainly interesting. In her "Oil and Water Abstract" the shapes look like glass stones. The line of the edges of the shapes, along with the repetition of the round "stones" or bubbles, and the variance in colors, add interest and elements or artistic design to the photograph.

Her photographs, much like the works of Georgia O'Keeffe, crop in so much on an otherwise familiar subject, like the dandelion puff in the above photograph, that the viewer sees the subject matter in a new light. This also makes the elements of design found in the subject matter more apparent for the viewer to appreciate. That is what I like about this style of cropping in, because all around us in nature, both in large scale and in the small scale, there are elements of design to be found.

Dew Drop

I love "Dew Drop" with the lines of the webs, the focal point of the drop,  and the other colors around and reflected in it.

-Maria

http://sjfinearts.com/  <-- her website where I found the photos and other information

Don Marco

So if you have not noticed already, I get really excited in sort of a "stick to the man" kind of way when I find professional artists who work in crayon. And Don Marco is a professional artist who works in crayon. (Yay!)

Autumn Wolf

He has done wildlife pieces as well as other pieces. I like the texture the crayons give the drawings. They certainly have detail but there is also a smooth, almost fuzzy texture that the crayons give the drawings. The drawings of the animals seem to be ones native to the American wilderness.

Elk

Old Navajo

In addition to wildlife pieces, Marco has also done a couple of pictures of Native Americans. I do not know if he is part Native American, or if he is just honoring them through his drawings. That would be interesting to know.

Red Tailed Hawk

Look at that drawing of a red-tailed hawk! I love hawks, and I love that he was able to create such a realistic drawing of subject matter like a hawk, or a landscape like "Scenic Dock," with such an "elementary" medium.

Scenic Dock

The texture of the crayon can also be used to give the pieces an impressionistic quality. So there is the option of obtaining clean edges, or more blurry edges, depending on the feeling you want the drawing to have, as seen in Marco's drawings.

The A Team

-Maria

http://www.themastercrayonartist.com/shop/custCat.aspx  <-- check out his site

Debbie Friedman

Moving on to the next artist, Debbie Friedman. She uses colored pencils in her drawings, sometimes adding water to add an element of painting to them. I have included pieces of hers from different series in this blog. Two of them are from her Stones series, as she calls it on her blog.

Green Vase

On her blog she notes the colors of the stones and how they interact with the water and glass vase they are resting in. I love this! The detail of the stones, glass, and water are each given due attention to detail.

Peacock Feather

Alright so I had to include "Peacock Feather" in this blog. Would you look at that detail?! Only one other time have I seen feathers that were that detailed. The colorful feather works nicely, contrasting the monochromatic sand dollars and the blue background. Though I still am not sure if I liked that she left some empty space, with the blue showing through. On the one hand it might be a nice variation in the background to not have the sand dollars everywhere, and the blue does seem to echo the blue in the feather. But at the same time it just feels kind of empty and unnecessary, and I wonder if filling it with sand dollars, with the blue showing through the holes in the shells, would look better.

The Red Angle

Winter Throne

In "Winter Throne" the snow and the tree trunk are RIDICULOUSLY life-like, and I like the idea of the bird, but it feels fake. It might be the drawing style, or use of color-- I'm not sure-- but at least parts of it feel flat and fake in comparison to the photorealistic surroundings.

-Maria

http://dlfriedman.com/myblog/page/2/  <-- this is her blog where I found her info and pieces! Check it out!