Artists
Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst in a contemporary artists who specialises in sculpture.
'For the Love of God', 2007
This piece is a human skull incrusted in around 8,600 diamonds modelled on an 18th century skull, with only the teeth being the surviving original part. This relates closely to my project as it is creating something beautiful out of something which may be perceived a quite morbid.
'Anatomy of an Angel', 2008
This piece is a sculpture on an angel with various areas of skin missing, revealing the anatomy underneath. This piece in particular in very similar to my work in the respect of revealing what lies underneath the skin. As well as comparing it to something beautiful, which in my case is the persons character and in Hirst's case an angel.
For the Love of God, 2007
Anatomy of an Angel, 2008
Henry Tonks
Tonks was a British surgeon who worked in reconstruction during the first world war. Influenced by the French Impressionists, Tonks drew his patients before and after they had facial reconstruction. By doing this, he was able to use his drawing as before and after images showing the improvements made through surgery. This relates to my project in a way of how Tonks used his drawings as an aid to showing improvements within science. Much like how in my paintings of the hand and forearm have some scientific accuracy behind them.
Chaim Soutine
Soutine was a Russian-French painter who created a major contribution tot he expressionist movement whilst living in Paris. He painted mainly portraits, some of which appear to be fairly distorted. One painting in particular is of a skinned animal hanging up in what seems to be a butchers, exposing its bare skin and bone of the animal. Both the portraits and the skinned animal relate to my project of 'inner beauty' in their own unique way. The distorted portrait relates to my project by placing a twist on the standard portraits. Much like how my work can be seen as looking at portraiture from a unique and different angle. Image 2 however, has a slightly more direct link to my project. This is because in this image you can see the interior works of the animal which is what the main theme of my project is based off; looking deeper into the human body and not just what is on the outside.
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Frida Kahlo
Kahlo was a Mexican painter who focused on many self-portraits using her Mexican heritage and pop culture as an underlying theme of her paintings. Many of her paintings were used to question her identity, gender and class as well as uniting the idea of fantasy and realism. Kahlo relates to my project in a way of using beauty as her main theme. Her idea of using fantasy within her paintings also links to my project as I also use the hypothetical idea of exposing the inner body whilst the person is very much alive.
German Renaissance
German Renaissance originated from what was the Italian Renaissance throughout the 15th and 16th Century. German artists became inspired by this movement when travelling to Italy where new developments in the arts increased.
Albrecht Dürer
He was a German artist who was strongly influenced by the Renaissance movement. Many of his drawings consisted of hands which are either praying or in the process of moving. He also drew many skulls, which are very anatomical. These relate to my project in the way he draws the realistic skulls as well as having focus on the hands in various positions. For my project I studied the way Albrecht's hands were placed and their proportions in order to help me with my paintings.
Hannah Absalom
Absalom is a young local North East artist, currently studying at Glasgow, who looks at a range of portraits using oil paints as her medium. Using culture as her main theme throughout her work she has also done pieces where areas of flesh have been peeled back revealing the insides, where Absalom loos more at the veins and arteries in my project I looked at the concept of 'inner beauty' and the organs. Each of her painting reflects the empowerment of women and for what they stand for. Absalom's work has strongly inspired me throughout this entire project.
Eliot Goldfinger
Goldfinger is an American artist who is known mainly for his anatomical work as well as his book published in 1991 about the human anatomy for artists. His book consists of the entire anatomy of the human body with drawing in perfect proportions labelled with the individual parts labelled with their Latin name. As well as this, each area of the body has a front, right, left and back view allowing the reader to have the full spectrum of angle required for when drawing to scale. By using hundreds of reference photos Goldfinger created an all-round view of every bone and muscle within the human body. This has greatly helped with my work as using areas from the online book I have been able to use sections to accurately draw areas such as rib-cages.
Andreas Vesalius
Vesalius is another artist whom created a book on the human anatomy through his extensive research and many drawings. Vesalius was born in the 16th Century and worked around the time of the German Renaissance. He was known as the founder of modern human anatomy due to his precision within his drawings. His work consisted of a human body standing there naked with all of the flesh stripped back revealing only the muscles within his body, similar to what I am doing within my project. As well as this the skeleton standing upright with no head, his drawing were very morbid but however worked in the way of their scientific authenticity.
Michael Keropian
Keropian is an artist specialising in sculpture, two of which caught my eye not only due to their relevance to my project but because of their sophisticated beauty. The first sculpture is of a man crouched over, raising his arm revealing areas of his body of which are missing skin, much like Hurst's sculpture of the angel. What made this stand out however was the simplicity of the piece and how effective it was. Although can bee seen as gory the face that the realistic body contrasting with the same-coloured insides allows the piece to appear like it the norm. The second piece of which is fairly similar is a hand where all what seems is tendons are exposed. I loved the way these twisted around each other in a way which reminded me of vines going up a tree, linking it to something natural and beautiful. This is how I want my work to appear, although gory I want it to look natural and beautiful.
Maso Kinoshita
Kinoshita is another sculpture artist who contrasts in the previous artists I have previously looked at. Kinoshita looks at the anatomy of both animals and humans and merges the two together creating the overall anatomy of mythical creatures which I think is so different and unique; which is what caught my eye on this artist. Kinoshita also uses colour within his sculptures unlike Hurst or Keropian who used only one colour. This creates although mythical a realistic look to his sculptures. Where some of his work is mythical others have a spiritual aspect to it so bringing to life the body of Gods from the inside.
Josh Bowe
Bowe is a portraiture artist who specialises in using bright colours and abstract strokes With oil paint to create the overall image. When visiting The Biscuit Factory the piece 'En Cours D Etude' straight away stood out for me with the contrast between the cyan blue background and the yellow skin tones. The harsh and prominent brush strokes created a texture on the canvas adding another layer to the painting. Also, the blue of the eyes match the background creating a bridge within the work making the eyes very intriguing to look at becoming my favourite part of the piece. The blank expression of the girl in the painting is also very interesting as it makes you try and assess what she is thinking about; its very open to interpretation. As I moved to look more at colour within paintings, this artist really stood out as an influence to me. The eyes within 'En Cours D Etude' have made me think about whether I want to focus on the full face or whether to mainly focus on the eyes as that is where I feel most expression and feeling comes from when looking at a person or photograph.
Anthony Marshall
Marshall's work reflects his passion for colour and design with the contents of his paintings ranging from landscape to figurative. Although his influences are diverse, all of Marshall's paintings are bases around the subject matter of colour. Marshall paints what he sees in his daily life but places more emphasis on the colours surrounding him. An example being when painting a natural scene Marshall will swap the softer tones for more bold and brighter colours creating a contrast between what he sees and everyday life. Marshall states: "I depend on the bright clean colours that acrylic gives me. I achieve a personal and hopefully unique interpretation of the contemporary world. I feel that colour is the lifeblood of the painting". Like Bowe, Marshall is a good artist I can reference within the new direction I am taking my project. Swapping the normal and natural colours for those that contrast and emphasise key features of my paintings.
Francoise Neilly
Nielly's portraiture is created using a palette knife and florescent oil paints. Her paintings have the intent of creating a high energy response. She prefers to work with thick and bold strokes rather than the clean brush strokes created by using a paintbrush. Layering the paint on in thick, free and contrasting colours she creates individual portraits. With moving on with my project I can use reference to Nielly by experimenting more with contrasting colours. As well as this, Nielly works within portraiture so I can use aspects of her work to experiment from using a similar technique to her rather than simply sticking to using paintbrushes.
Claude Monet
Monet was known as one of the lead in the impressionist movement in the 1870's, France. His work was based off using a spectrum of colour, some of which his paintings didn't include any tints or shades (adding white or black to colour). Monet also specialised in oil paints as his medium as well as his back garden being a prominent theme throughout his career. Water Lilies is one of his most famous paintings were he keeps in with the blue tones and visible strokes to create the image. In my project I can make reference to monet as he used colour to express through his paintings as well and move forward to not use colour to create a tonal piece but as a bad to paint in a colourist way.
Michael Blazy
As part of the Venice Bienalle 2017, Blazy was a part of the Earth pavilion 'Viva Arte Viva' with his exhibition 'Collection de Chasseurs'. This entitles a selection of trainers set up in a consumer shop style where there trainers are one a vertical stand. Repurposed as plant pots, the plants eventually grow and show signs of decay over the course of the Bienalle. Blazy has previously planted earth matter into components such as computers, printers and cameras following a long line of work in the relationship between urban influences and the cycle of life. This exhibition gave me the inspiration to use real plant matter within my work.
Michelle Stuart
Like Blazy, Stuart was also part of the Venice Bienalle in 2017 alongside Blazy's work in the earth pavilion. Where Blazy's work consisted of a range of shoes, Stuart's ranged from 1960's literature alongside plant matter as well as a series of 60 photographs showing the environment. Her work reflects the relationship between literature and growing plant matter. This influenced me on using the washed up coal from the beach as a canvas to paint on.
Ben Henderson
When visiting The Biscuit Factory I came across Ben Henderson. He uses acrylic paint in a spectrum of contrasting colours colours layered over wood panels which are carefully placed in order to create an image of nature. The image to the left, 'Roam' is an image of an elephant with its eyes facing forward staring straight at the audience. As you move closer to the image you can see the dramatic brush strokes which piece together to create this overpowering image. I liked how Henderson didn't use a standard material to paint on but chose wood panels. I also liked how the elephant is placed slightly to the left of the panels representing movement across the piece. Something I may look towards doing within my project.
Dimosthenis Prodromou
Prodromou expresses the human figure in collage form using a range of coloured paper cut into long shapes ranging from bright contrasting colours to complimentary pastel colours. The primary subject of his work is to explore the human nature and its activities in day to day life. Using a range of materials, he uses them His intricate work with colour creates layers of depth and movement around his work. The simple brown background also allows the collages of the human bodies to speak for themselves without being over shadowed by the background. This made me think about where I was going with this project. By simplifying the background I could make the impact of the colour used magnified.
Davide Cambria
Cambria is an portrait artist specialising in oil painting on either canvas, wood or board. I like how Cambria uses a natural colour scheme which compliments each other as well as how the darker tones are around the outside of the facial features leaving the lighter tints to the centre of the portrait. This creates a realistic aesthetic whilst the harsh brush stokes create an abstract feel to the work. This work reminds me slightly of a combination of Niellys harsh lines and Prodromou's natural background and geometric shapes. With the most detail surrounding the centre of the face and less as the portrait moves out this creates a focal centre point being on the eyes. Much like with Bowe's work I am drawn particularly toward the eyes as I feel the emotion pouring out of the piece. Another reason why I focused on eyes within my project.
Tobias Rehberger
When discussing artists in my assessment Rehberger was brought to my attention. Although he may not have an influence on my work it was very interesting to see the similarities and differences between our practices. Rehberger is a German visual artist working within design and architecture to create installations which alter gallery spaces. He works with bright colours and clean edges to create installations on a range of scales. When looking at his work the piece that stood out to me was this cafeteria type setting with white and black stripes on the wall and floor constantly changing direction whenever hitting a dead end. The piece was then finished off with splashes on neon coloured chairs to add colour to what would've been an optical-type illusion. I found this very interesting as I was trying to cancel out black and white at the beginning of my projects, this piece showed me that black and white could be used in a way of which to highlight and place emphasis on the already bold colours.