Sepideh Salehi is an artist from Tehran, Iran, and currently works in New York. She uses a range of media, including drawing, painting, printmaking, and video. A lot of her work focuses on the role of women in society, including her Mohr Portrait and Women in the Street of Tehran series. One thing that I like about Salehi's work is her use of abstraction in portraits. She often abstracts the faces of her subjects using dynamic brushstrokes and shapes. Most of the women that she paints have their faces covered in some way, which is similar to what I am doing in my work. The role of women in Iran is very different than in the US, which is what I am familiar with, so I think that the content my work is somewhat different from hers, but I can definitely take inspiration from her work.
Kehinde Wiley is a New York based artist. He is known for realistic portraits with colorfully patterned backgrounds. His work incorporates poses from classic European paintings of nobility and aristocrats using black models to comment on the way that the world views black people. I really like the way he incorporates pattern into his work and the meaning behind the patterns and poses that he uses. I also like his bold use of colors. Although the content of my work is very different from his, I think the ways he incorporates content into his work though pattern could be useful for my work.
Over spring break, I visited the Muscarelle Museum of Art at William and Mary. While I was there, I saw the exhibitions “In the Light of Caravaggio: Dutch and Flemish Paintings from Southeastern Museums,” “Women With Vision: Masterworks from the Permanent Collection” and “Guerrilla Girls: Conscience of the Art World.” The exhibition that I found the most interesting was “Women With Vision” because it was made up of a very diverse collection of pieces by a range of artists. I also liked that it was an all female exhibition because although women artists are becoming more respected in the art world, it is still uncommon to see an exhibition of work solely by women. This museum was also interesting because it is much smaller than many musuems that I have been to in the past like the VMFA or others in DC or New York, however the artwork in the Muscarelle’s collection is still significant and contains work by prominent artists such as Georgia O’Keefe, Kathe Kollwitz, and Mary Cassatt. Because the galleries are not very big, there were also many artists’ sketches or prints rather than large finished paintings being displayed, so it was interesting to see a different side/different type of art being displayed.
Lou Ros is a Paris based artist. He started his art career as a street artist and a graffiti artist. Most of his work incorporates figures or portraits, with some abstraction. One part of Ros' work that I think will influence my work is his use of thin layers of paint. I usually paint very thickly and with many layers, however I think it would be interesting to vary the thickness of the paint in different areas throughout a painting. That is what I am trying to do with my current home project, so that the background collage of the maps still shows through. I also like Ros' use of abstraction, because it makes his pieces much more dynamic. Although he does not state much about his content, I think that the abstraction of the faces in many of his portraits relates to the ideas of identity and anonymity, which are things that I may want to explore in my work, because they sort of relate to my greater theme of change.
Nikki Rosato is a DC based painter and sculptor. Her best known work is her intricate paper cutting, like the above piece, which is a road map with the area in between the roads cut out. This picture does not really do the work justice, because you cannot see the negative space due to the white background. She combines maps with the human figure because she sees many parallels between the two. I think that Rosato's work is applicable to my ow work because she is using paper cutting to create intricate figures, and I have also been experimenting with paper cutting. I sort of moved away from that method because I wanted to do more painting, however seeing Rosato's work makes me want to try paper cutting again using a different method. I think it could be cool to do some very intricate, thin designs and overlay them on a painting. I also like Rosato's use of maps because they create an interesting design and texture, and because they can be interpreted a lot of different ways in a piece's content. It is also a coincidence because my home project incorporates a collage of maps.
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AuthorI am an art student at Maggie Walker Governor's School. On this site I post project progress, research, and photos of my final work. Archives
May 2018
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