posmodernism

Part 2

Postmodernism

Abstract Expressionist

• Jackson Pollock
• Willem de Kooning
• Mark Rothko

I decided to look in to the art work of Jackson Pollock and try his way of painting and try to become him just for a while. First of all I was really surprised when I red from the that he had a lot of controlled while creating his paintings. Many times they look as they have been created by mad accident when if fact that wasn't true at all. Jackson Pollock had an idea and story to tell behind his art work. Apparently there was no unwanted and unplanned layer when he was splashing paint on top of another one.

I do also feel close to the art work of Mark Rothko in therms of the size of his paintings. It is interesting statement which came from him about the size of his rations. He said if you paint a big picture it makes you feel like you are in it. I totally understand that description. The small canvas or a paper makes me feel restricted and just like I need more room to express my ideas. I do often realised that if I had more room I could create better art work. In terms of the style comparing to Jackson Pollock we can see totally different examples of Abstract Expressionism

Post-Modernist artists like:

• Jasper Johns
• Frank Stella
• Donald Judd

from these three artists I found Jasper Johns as the most interesting Post-Moderst artist. The reason why I found his art work intriguing is the way how he decided to show in different way the amreican flag. This proves about his original way of looking at the ordinary thing and the items of a daily use. The objects we look and use every day he saw as an extraordinary objects and creating a piece of art was for him a natural reaction.

Pop-art artists:

• Richard Hamilton
• Andy Warhol
• Jeff Koons

I will focus on Richard Hamilton and Andy Warhol in this section of my course. Those artists were looking at the art from different perspective. They also used different art material to fulfilled their art visions. Richard Hamilton was well know for the passion for collage when Andy Warhol made his way in the art by using ordinary objects and turning them into something extraordinary. I was very lucky and pleased when I could watch the most famous art work by Hamilton in Polish art gallery in my family town Lodz a few years ago. This art work is called :”Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?”. I have to admit when I was looking at this exhibition more than ten years ago I could not understand this idea. It was to far from the typ of art I was interested in that time. Now looking back with some bigger art knowledge I can easily appreciate his collage and his style. It is the same with Andy Warhol, the more I know about the art the more I can understand and appreciate different style than mine. I am bit far from Pop-Art however the Campbell's Tomato soup by Warhol makes me think different about ordinary daily objects. It takes some sort of bravery to take this challenge and appreciate different point of view and art vision.

Conceptual Art artists:

• Joseph Kosuth
• Piero Manzoni
• John Baldessari

This art movement was based on the believed that the most important about the art is the idea behind the artwork and the creating process.

I have never heard abut all these three artists and after a little research about all of theme I found American artist John Baldessari the most interesting and close to my heart. I do find his bright bold colours and the idea of his collages very appealing and exciting.

From Polish artist representing this art movement it is worth to mention surname such as Roman Opalka. These artist was really important for Polish culture for the reason of being brave and innovative for the time in which he was creating. Roman Opalak was famous for the selection of art work about the numbers. He was painting one number every day as his diary. The creating process for more important for him not the look of the art work. When I was bit younger I could not understand why only the process and not the finish product was the goal for him, therefore I did not pay bigger attention to this artist. Until now when I have more time and I am mature enough to look more into the art and the concept.

Performance Art artists:

• Yves Klein
• ORLAN
• Gilbert & George

This section of the art seams to me more controversial and more shocking then the previous one. I am more familiar with the artist Klein and Orlan however they are not the one who I would like to fallow in the future. I have never heard of Gilbert and George before and by looking at their art career I have to admit I found their work quit challenging to understand. I do know Klein from the blue period and I love his painting which he created perfect deep blue canvas. The another work I am familiar with is his photo-montage which shoves him jumping from the top of the building.

Orlan is the artist which makes us think about the body as a part of art. She used her face and documented her plastic surgeries or his performance.

Minimalism Artists:

• Eva Hesse
• Sol LeWitt
• Ellsworth Kelly

Eva Hesse played important role in female art history. She was one of the female artist that made to the art and left a legacy by her Minimalism and Post-minimals art works. She is famous for : Repetition Nineteen III, Accession II, Hung up and many work with textiles. She claimed she never wanted to create a feminist art and many art critics called her a feminist artists for the fact of being a female.

Elsworth Kelly and Sol LeWitt represent very similar style. They both used big spaces filed up with bold colours. They used geometric shapes.

Photo-Realism artists:

• Chuck Close
• Marilyn Minter
• Duane Hanson

Chuck Close is very impressive artist who managed produced a number of large paintings representing portraits. His style is very unique and demands a lot of skills and patients. I was absolutely amazed by his work during this research. His talent to combining different colours so they look from the distance as it is colour of the skin is great.

Marilyn Minter is another artist I have never heard of before this research maybe for the fact I have never been interested in modern art so much. It is good to broad mind and see other artists and their ideas. She defiantly is a female artist I will remember for the reason of her controversial art work. The selection of work under the title “Dirty/Pretty” is worth mention.

Land Art :

• Robert Smithson
• Andy Goldsworthy
• Christo and Jean-Claude

Andy Goldsworthy is the artist I have discovered through this research and I have fall in love from the first moment. I heard about the Land Art however it was not my cup of tea as people say. Although this artist has changed my perception about this movement. His art work has something magical as it perfectly reflect the place where he decided to create his art work. It is very feminine and gentle in my opinion.

Christo and Jean-Claude are definitely on top of the list. They have created amazing pieces of art and I can not express my excitement when I look at their huge art projects.

YBA artists

• Damien Hirst
• Tracey Emin
• Ian Devenport

Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin are the artists I have been to see their exhibitions in the last few years. Damien held his exhibition at the Tate Modern in 2012 and this event made massive impression on me as a creative person. The scale of his work was big and different medium he used to create his projects was staggering.

Tracey Emin had her exhibition at the Turner Contemporary in Margate in 2012. It made me think about motherhood as a female artist as she reflected on the time that she lost. Tracey produced a selection of drawings about female body in which she expressed her regrades about not having kids.

Project 2: Practical Research into Postmodernism

 

Two art work inspired by Jackson Pollock

 

 

This technique is fun to use and the beginning I did not have idea about how  easy is to control the brush and by this it was easy to shape the composition. I can see how Pollock was able to manipulate with his art work.

 

 

 

One art work inspired by Mark Rothko

 

This technique looks simply but it is all about the colours and the distance between one line and another line.


Other sketches inspired by abstract art.

Contextual Focus Points

Abstraction

Philip's Guston abstract art looks very similar and in my opinion his art work is very predictable in terms of colour and form. What he was trying to imply is actually hard to say in my opinion....

research point

Alexander Tinei showed that the paying attention to face was not necessary the main part of his art work. He proved that creating piece of art does not have to mean painting details of the person on the canvas. Am I concern with identity in my work? I am very aware of the face and the details of the person who I would like to paint. I have made a few portraits in my life so far and every time the face was the most important part of the painting to me. It is like a paying tribute to the person who I chose to paint. I can only paint someone who means something to me and in that way I create more personal art work. The face takes not long to paint as I always know how do I want them to look on the painting but only when I am close to the person. I love choosing the colours for the face as thy can create a mood of that person. This time I will try to paint a portrait of my little boy who is only 3 weeks old without paying attention to the details on his little face. I am very interested how will I do on this task set by myself.

 

And there we are.... it was exciting exercise and it took me only 5min per picture. Should I spend more time on each individual work? However whenever I spent more time I start to think too much about each individual line and colour of the paint I use to produce my paintings. I am very happy with the result. I have used a limited palette of colours like pink, beige and black. Baby Henry has still a bit of baby jaundice therefore the colour is bit more yellow and pink like a baby skin. I know I still could limit the amount of details on his face nevertheless I am very pleased as for the first time.

 

 

Detailed Observations

David Hockney is one of the most successful British artist of our times. He managed to established big number of people who admire his style. David Hockney always has been brave in his decisions about his art and it happen this time again when we talk about The Red Table. This art work makes us wonder about the perspective. What do we actually know about it? Is the perspective on this photo-montage right? Did he make mistake or was it actually an act of deliberate creativity?

If we have a close look we can clearly see that David used an reversed perspective. He used it in such a clever and playful way. He always wants to surprise the viewer and it happened again on this piece of art.

Research Point

David Hockney happened to be the artist respected by many people for the amount of art work and the style he represents. His unconventional way of thinking about the art found many fans around the world. It happened to be that I am one of them. Why do I fell close to his art work? The colours are always his strong side therefore fore someone like me passionate about colours and tones he gets straight one top of the list of artists. Another exciting and inspiring thing about David Hockney is his selection of media he wants to speak to us. The photo montage, drawings, paintings are always his strong points as he try to think outside the box when he creates new project.

 My attempt of photomontage for my boys Baptism this year.

I would  like to hare my impressions about David's Hockney last big exhibition at the RA in London.
I was very excited when I booked ticket for this exhibition called : " 82 portraits and 1 still-life", moreover it was the first time when I supposed to go to London with my little baby boy(5weeks old). that made my expectation about this event even higher perhaps. When I got to the gallery I could not believed I was about to spent time amongst David's paintings. However it happen to be more disappointing exhibition than I expected. Overall the paintings were pretty amazing but there was something that made me a bit bored after a few minutes. The quality of paintings looks like some of them weren't finished, what I mean by that is when you have a close look the layer of the paint is not thick enough to cover some parts of the canvas. The acrylics look sometimes like the colour has not been well executed and my final impression was that this exhibition was bit rushed. Or David Hockney made himself bored while painting this exhibition therefore there is not a lot of excitement in his paintings. Maybe I am wrong.

 

 

Landscape research point

I really took a lot from watching a video with Anselm Kiefer. His art seams to be very brave in terms of the subject as he treats a lot about the Holocaust. You have to be very understanding and forgiving when you look at the German art that treats about the war and this human sadness. The scale of the art is also very impressive as the painting are enormous. The colours represent the sadness and create in great way very dark and gloomy mood.

I have painted some landscapes in the past however never as big as created by Kiefer. I managed to paint some small very colourful landscapes of the seaside using the gypsum on the canvas as a first layer to make the surface uneven.

A short note about my current and future progress:

How do see my current work with this course? I am very happy with course Paiting2 as it surprisingly fits with my current life style so well. I am mother of two kids one is 3 years old and the other is one month old only. This course gave me enough writing and researching tasks to keep my art hunger satisfy. The time that is given me currently is very hard to predict therefore it is easier for me to look on internet and researching new artists and new art movement, I also go to the library whenever I can to spent some time looking into the written words about artists and their lifestyles. I enjoyed so far the course structure and the way how the tasks are presented in this booklet. There is enough indication for me which directions to broad up my art knowledge and there is also enough space for me to stay fresh and true to my art interests, if that makes sense?

And how do I imagine my future progress with this course? According to current researches and exercises I had privilege to go through I can see my progress:

• being more adventures in terms of experimenting with the colours
  
  
• being more brave with the composition
  
  
• being more brave in terms of subjects of my art work
  
  
• thinking what do I want to achieve with my art
  
  
• trying to take less time producing my art as sometimes less is more

Is there anything I would like to change at this point of my course?

• Take more active part on students forum
  
  
• wish to make more sketches