curlyclio

Wednesday the 17th of March 2010

Listening to: Trouble Is (Joker Remix)

• James Meakin - together with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley I love these powerful and intense photos. The minimalist and empty backgrounds add emphasis to her figure, and the harsh sunlight emphasizes her curves perfectly in contrast with the angular background.

A few of Meakin's other photographs..

• Gerhard Richter - as well as being an incredible realistic painter Richter also manages strong textural and colourful paintings. However, his ability to create such photo-realistic paintings is astounding.

• Michael Hussar - strange, weird, masochistic, sexual, unpleasant, realistic, unrealistic, ugly and beautiful, I find Hussar's paintings enthralling. Some are far too kitsch for my taste, but his renaissance painting style clashes so wonderfully with the disturbing images in his paintings. His colour palette is relatively limited, but I think it's very effective in maintaining a specific mood throughout all his paintings.

• Keith Emier - supple images and figures combined with rich, pure colours.

• Rob Voerman - not especially my taste, his work is rather messy and not particularly in proportion. Some of his works are interesting texturally, but I wouldn't say I understand them!

• Mat Collishaw - I absolutely ADORE his butterfly pieces!! Such delicate animals have become so dramatic and violent, and the colours are stunning. I just think they're gorgeous.

Listening to: Four Seasons In One Day by Crowded House

Inspiration

curlyclio

Monday the 22nd of February 2010

Listening to: Butterfly by Crazy Town

This post is about the artists I've found most inspirational over the past few months. I believe you can never have too many artists as resources, and the more of other people's work I am aware of the more original I can make mine. A pretty epic one...

• Anish Kapoor - the exhibition at the Royal Academy last November/December was incredibly frustrating. He is a master of shape, giving his pieces a very tactile, responsive or passive nature. The pieces I saw included the "train" of red wax passing ever so slowly through a number of doorways and the canon shooting blocks of wax at a wall. I enjoyed this exhibition so much, and spent pretty much the whole morning and afternoon walking through it, sketching some pieces as well as taking a step back to observe how other people reacted to Kapoor's works. However, the frustrating part comes from my "touchy-feely" nature. You weren't allowed to touch anything! Well, me being me I did, and ended up with a blob of red wax stuck to my shoe and a frowning security guard. I don't regret it, the red wax was deliciously squishy and so worth touching. Aside from my personal frustrations it was a fantastic exhibit!

This piece you are allowed to touch, even encouraged to, and is cleaned every day so it stays beautifully shiny for the viewers.

In the Guggenheim Museum, New York

• Tony Cragg - not much to say about him rather than SMOOTH and SHAPELY. Oh and varied materials.

Red Square

On A Roll

Yes, polystyrene. Called Early Forms.

Divide

Bent Of Mind

Close Quarters

Caught Dreaming

Caught Dreaming II

• Jeff Koons - fantastic bold, kitsch colours. His subjects don't particularly do it for me, but I do love most things shiny.

• Koen van Mechelen - not going to deny it, some pretty weird stuff from van Mechelen. But for some reason it just works so well, and a lot of work has obviously gone into combining the materials (different animals) effectively and realistically. His images are definitely bold, which I love.

This combination of an iguana and a chicken just works fantastically with the colours and proportions.

• Daphne Wright - showing dismal images, with colour she's managed to remove the violence from these pieces completely. In white they seem peaceful, as if caught in mid-action. The details is also immaculate, mixing resins and fibres to create accurate wool/feather/hair textures.

• Lee Hyunkoo - this crazy man has created the skeletons for cartoon animals. Daffy Duck, Roadrunner, Goofy etc., which I find charming, and very dedicated.

• Francis Bacon - his images are so strong, and his painting style was very original at the time. His paintings show so much anguish and pain, influenced by his personal struggles with his father, and of being gay in a very unforgiving society. He moved to Berlin, at the time probably the city where homosexuality was most accepted. The paintings he made in his earlier years as an artist were all destroyed, as he wasn't pleased with them. The exhibition at the Tate Britain last year was great, although overwhelming. The impact and strength his images have impressed me, and I find them very honest and vulnerable at the same time.

• Auguste Rodin - fantastic statues of the human form. Simple as.

• Ron Mueck - last but most definitely not least, Mueck is considered a hyperrealist, apart from the scale he creates his figures at. The craftsmanship and precision that goes into each piece astounds me, and makes me rather jealous. I've been told his exhibition in the National Gallery in Melbourne is incredible, so if you're in the area...

Listening to: Coconut Skins by Damien Rice