Van Gogh

Subject matter

This painting shows a field or a garden of flowers, iris'. Van Gogh painted this whilst he was living in the Saint Paul-de-Mausole asylum in France.

He was influenced by the japanese wood-blok style Ukiyo-e, as were many of the post-impressionist artists at the time.

Technique

This, oil on canvas, piece is done with very hard, rough brush marks, as was most of his later work, with the shapes of the grass, leaves and flowers outlined, very similar to the Ukiyo-e Japanese wood-block prints, a movement that marked the impressionists. These markings give the painting a thick, relief texture.

The painting is a mix of mainly cool colours, the impact of the blue irises, and a transition into a more warmer feel, the brown-green soil and the marigolds in the background, also the mint coloured leaves that’s just between a bright yellow and a cool blue. This combination gives the piece as a whole a cool summer ambiance.

Vincent uses a very detailed show of folding, as clothes would drape on a figure, these flower’s petals droop on their age.

The perspective is as if he were the same height of the irises, or drawing them from a low point of view. There’s a show of depth in this piece as the less-detailed marigolds fade into the background.

Artist's Career

Van Gogh started painting peasants and landscapes in dark, earthy tones whilst the Impressionist movement was beginning to rise with bright and vivid colours, making his work more difficult to sell.  It was his younger brother Théo that told him to continue his work with brighter colours. 
In his brief career he sold only one of his paintings. His most valid and praised works are said to have been done during the last 3 years of his life. 

Links with own work

Van Gogh has a particular way of painting. Like most of the impressionists, the brush marks are very thick & rough. Although most of my work is light, I try to maintain a bright colour theme & I choose mainly landscapes & portraits as I find them more challenging and fun. Also, I out-line most of the basic shapes in my pieces, mainly with a fine liner or a thick marker depending on the object contrary to Van Gogh's as he out-lines his main objects with a darker shade of the filling colours.  I find the Impressionist movement, in general, an inspiration for most of my experimental and leisure works as I find the technique & style of their paintings to be so free, yet carefully placed.

Quotations

"[It] strikes the eye from afar. The Irises are a beautiful study full of air and life."- Theo Van Gogh

KARA WALKER

“One of my earliest memories involves sitting on my dad’s lap in his studio in the garage of our house and watching him draw. I remember thinking: ‘I want to do that, too,’ and I pretty much decided then and there at age 2½ or 3 that I was an artist just like Dad.” —Kara Walker

Kara Walker (42) is a living, Californian African American contemporary artist, who uses paper cutting & silhouettes to express gender, violence, sexual, race and identity themes in an ironic, humorous and sometimes grotesque manner.

Through, she communicates the racism, sexual objectification, torture and violence of the 19^th century slavery.

She uses a narrative panorama of each of her cut outs of black paper on the white gallery background to create a story line, a tall tale by images.

The illusion of depth is added to her pieces by placing images, of a background, higher up on the wall.

Her use of silhouettes is an ironic way to express this specific theme as you can't really see what's going on up front, as the stories of these incidents are now forgotten, she makes us remember by not showing us directly, but, instead, letting us use out imagination, adding colour and life to where she only presents a figure. 

The black, white & the occasional grey Walker uses to present her pieces gives the whole show a feel of antiquity. Her exhibitions are made even more valuable and rare, as Walker destroys her open wall pieces once the exhibition closes.

On pages 3 & four of my sketch book I did a copy of this piece, doing it in both the black against white & vice-versa for a full negative-positive view. This chosen piece demonstrates, to me, a lack of a will to live, the young girl must have been through an obvious amount of abuse. In the smoke you can also observe a female face and a town, this could mean that she's burning everyone along with herself.

LINKS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipd7ZjFcoo8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6t-S_DFxCI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMBvNpEj7WM&

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8uJ6tQRxvo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doD_wxmRepw (review on her work)

Walker's influences 

art 21 blog article

365 artists blog article

SI SCOTT

Is a Uk based graphic designer & illustrator that's widely known for his typographical use of extensions, curves & loops in his letterings.

After finishing secondary school, at the age of 16, he carried on his artistic interest in a two year BTEC, which was followed by a foundation course where he experimented and learned the true meaning of graphic design. Scott's modern fantasy figures and letter types have won him a great deal of exhibitions in institutions around the world.

Si's style has become so well known, it's used as a synonym with his own name, his work is based mainly in modern typography and abstract animal, figures & logo types for Madonna, Kraftwerk, BBC, Adidas & Nike, to name a few, with his unique swirls. 

Si Scott's work is done mostly by hand with gel tip pens & markers, and colour manipulated with digital software. 

LINKS:

Si Scott Designing

Scott's official page

Dvisible Magazine Interview

Format Magazine Interview

Digital Art Empire Feature 

Si Scott on Behance

Si Scott Designing

Scott's official page

Dvisible Magazine Interview

Format Magazine Interview

Digital Art Empire Feature 

Si Scott on Behance

MR. BRAINWASH

  Mr. Brainwash (Thierry Guetta) is a Street Artist & filmmaker who started out following and documenting other street artists at work. He was introduced to doing street art himself by his cousin 'Invader'. Fame came with his first solo exhibition in 2008 which is considered one of Los Angeles' most memorable solo art shows, and, even more so when the Banksy directed documentary "Exit Through The Gift Shop"was released in 2010.

  Although, brainwash doesn't physically create the work himself, he does design it, like an architect would design a building but wouldn't build it himself, he has a creative mind, but, Guetta doesn't enter my definition of street artist. The original idea of street art has that rough feeling of clandestinity, that guerrilla touch of, almost, delinquency, a movement that started as graffiti; an illegal and prosecuted activity that was done at night by mob of angry youth, it was done to express the discontent of young people marginalised in a society with no spaces for them. It's only in recent years that the talent of graffiti makers was recognised and it became art in a different form to the mainstream form of art moving from "vandals" to "artists". It seems that Mr Brainwash is a talented man, an artist that took advantage of the popularity of street art and tried to gain a place amongst the real street artists such Banksy, Invader, Malarkey, etc.

  Street art, like the cave works of Altamira (Spain) about 40.000 years ago, is done just to express the artist feelings. One imagines that it was done from the soul, maybe in anger or to shout out to other people how happy they were, but, when an artist starts planing a work with a mentality of profiting from it and calculating how much "fame" they can get then the definition of street artist may no longer apply to that artist, and it is for this reason that Mr Brainwash although talented, perhaps should try his wares as a mainstream artist rather than pretending to be a street artist.