Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Modern Realism

As a follow-up to my previous post on figurative expressionists, here are some of my favorite realist painters in the contemporary art market.

Realism today takes many forms: classical realism, photorealism, and even magical realism in the tradition of George Tooker and Jared French. Many of these artists are also influenced by illustration, advertising, and electronic media.

I admire these artists for their devotion to visual truth, unaltered by gimmicks, and also for their ability to impart something extraordinarily personal in their works. 

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Sunday, November 10, 2013

Contemporary Figurative Expressionism

Here's a quick blog post about some of my favorite figurative expressionists in the contemporary art world.

These artists explore the boundaries between realism and abstraction. Their works reference the masters of action painting (de Kooning, Pollock), mixed media (Rauschenberg, Bearden), pop  (Warhol), color field (Frankenthaler), and painterly portraiture (Freud, Bacon), while synthesizing their own visual language.

Electronic media also exerts a huge influence among many of these painters, some of whom employ glitched, pixelated imagery as a modern take on impressionism.

I admire these artists' virtuosity and refusal to settle on a formulaic, marketable style. Rather, these artists continue to experiment with technique, materials, and content.

Click on their links and explore their work.
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Saturday, August 31, 2013

Male Figure Drawings

Since the National Academy is on summer break until mid-September, I decided to drop in at Spring Studio to practice short poses. 

From my vantage point, the model was backlit most of the time - not ideal but I didn't mind it so much once I began to focus on shadows within shadows. Or rather, reflected light within shadows, which not only delineated form but also provided some compelling abstract patterns.

During these short poses I tried some combinations of line and flat areas of shading to get to the essence of the gesture. I normally would have attempted something more realistic with such a young, well built model but it was fun abstracting the figure for a change.

I'd like to drop in at Spring Studio more often, especially for the long poses. Maybe Saturday evenings, if I can work those classes into my schedule.

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