Artist #32: Lawrence Carroll

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Lawrence Carroll is an American artist who was born in Australia and moved to California when he was four in 1958. He studied at Moorpark Junior College and then at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena on a full scholarship. In 1984 he moved to New York and in four years he had his first solo show there. The year after that he was invited to an international exhibition by Harald Szeemann in Germany as one of 9 American artists with many other international artists. Since then Lawrence Carroll has done many other national and international shows, participated in Documenta in Kassel, Germany, and is in many permanent collections of various galleries.

Untitled (table painting )2009
Oil, wax, house paint and canvas on wood, Newspaper, light and cord
83.5 x w: 62 x d: 15.4 in Picture Credit

Carroll makes large mixed media works. His paintings are often muted and seem to be very introspective and thoughtfully created in his approach. I think he has an interesting way of dealing with the materials and telling their story. Some of his work can be see at the ACE Gallery website, here. I also found a kinda funny article with images of Lawrence Carroll's drawings done before bed to help him sleep.

Untitled 2010
Oil, wax, house paint, flowers and canvas on wood
55.1 x w: 42.1 x d: 3.1 in Picture Credit

Website Update

I just added a ton of stuff and such to my website. It took me a long time to get all the pictures up.... sooo.. check it out? Please? It will make my day :)

https://sites.google.com/site/corinnacampbellportfolio/


Thank you! ^_^ <3

Artist #31: Stanka Kordic

Stanka Kordic is an American painter, born of Croatian parents. She graduated from the Cleavland Institute of Art in 1985 and has traveled in Europe for inspiration. Kordic worked as an illustrator for many years doing editorial art, package design, and book illustration. In 1988 she started a fine art studio so she could work on her own paintings of landscape and figures. She has been recognized locally (in Ohio) in various shows as well as being a part of corporate collections such as: the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and Key Bank. She says that her cultural tradition gave her work ethic and a passion for life that helped her do freelance work. Kordic's client list spans the US, crossing the ocean to England and Croatia and she has been shown in exhibitions in various US states. Her website is here.

As One
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Kordic's work is about the separation between the natural world and humans. She integrates her portraits into the landscape to bridge this gap and says that her paintings allow for contemplation in our hectic lifestyles. The connections between things like the light and color and the figure and landscape or her to her painting are important to her. Stanka Kordic likes to slowly build up the paint on her work in order to intuitively understand the figure and paint.
I love the emotive feel that Kordic's paintings give. I also am entranced by the movement of the brushstrokes that she uses in her painting. The paintings by Stanka Kordic can be seen here.

Winds Resolve, 24" x 18", oil on canvas
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What I've been up to...

Yesterday, Saturday morning that is, my family and I tumbled out of the house to see the Hermitage Museum and Gardens. My mom has been wanting to see this for...well I guess since she moved to Virginia. Anyways the Hermitage is a historical house in Norfolk that was built in 1908 by a couple from New York named William and Florence Sloane. Originally just a summer home, it was lived in by the Sloane family until the 1960s. The gardens are beautiful to see!
You're probably thinking, oh, that's a nice history lesson, but why is this on your art blog?
Well I'll tell you..
Mrs. Sloane was an avid art collector. She thought that the Hampton Roads area wasn't cultured and brought it upon herself to collect a lot of varied types of art. The Sloanes were actually one of the people who helped start the Chrysler Museum. Mrs. Sloane's collection includes many paintings (some by friends or relatives), furniture, sculpture and woodwork (on and in the house by Charles Woodson), and a surprisingly wonderful Asian art collection. Even today, the upstairs part of the house is used as an art gallery as it would have been when the Sloanes lived there.
I'll go ahead and put two of the artists/art that I liked the best.

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First, in one of the gardens was a sweet sculpture/fountain of a young girl. Girl Drinking from a Shell was by the artist Edward McCartan in 1915.
The other was in the art gallery upstairs entitled Rejoice Greatly by Stephen Reid in 1927.


Then that at 6pm my mom and I went to d'Art to its 25th Anniversary Celebration. Most of the artist's areas were open for exhibition of their work. It was fun seeing local artists and their work. Though I didn't really talk to any of them since most weren't at their area and the music was loud besides. I did pick up a few business cards and one of the artists had a resume to pick up, so I did to look over to write my own.

Today! I went to Micheal's and got some cheap stretched canvas and canvas panels so I'll start painting tomorrow. Yay!

Artist #30: Sophie Calle

(the words are from the letter from her ex-boyfriend)
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From Exquisite Pain. Picture credit

Sophie Calle is an artist born in France who lives and works in Paris. She does photography and performance art. Her work is about interactions with people and places in which she becomes both the author and a character in a narrative. Sophie Calle's artwork focuses on investigations and curiosity about her life. She often dissects her life and happenings through many snapshots almost like cutting up the whole story so she can thoroughly examine all of the sections of it. Then she takes these pieces and compares them to each other to create the story. This is interesting way of working in which the process is more important to the artist than the final result. I think a lot of her work is about human vulnerability also.

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I'm gonna post some links that better explain what Sophie Calle was doing for each series.
This one is kind of an overview of a few different series. This image from the Paula Cooper gallery website is from a series called Exquisite Pain, which is explained here. The Media Art Net website had two descriptions of her works: one of The Shadow and one of L'Hotel series.

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Artist #29: Godfrey Blow

Light to Dark 3. 2000.
oil on cotton canvas

Godfrey Blow is an artist who has had many solo exhibitions, mostly in Australia and United Kingdom. He was born in 1948 and studied art at Sheffield Hallam University in England. Godfrey Blow now lives and works in Western Australia.

Wounded Angel. 2005.
Acrylic on canvas on board.

Blow's art is concerned with imagery from nature that give insight to its existence. His work comes from his own personal spiritual mythology which he believes is just as relevant as scientific fact and is still universally meaningful and understood. Godfrey Blow also deals with natural life occurrences in his artwork.

Connections. 1999.
oil on cotton canvas.

I love the naturalistic forms and sort of abstract nature of his work. I think they are beautifully spiritual works and are fun to look at for a period of time at all of the parts and how they flow together. All of the images are from Godfrey Blow's website, here. So check out some of his other works! :)

Artist #28: Rita Ackermann

N DA SHADE 2008
acrylic and oil paint, gel medium, spray paint,
dirt, oil stick, printed paper, charcoal, ink on canvas
78 x 85 1/8 x 1 1/2 inches

Rita Ackermann was born in Budapest, Hungary and now lives and works as an artist from New York, NY. She has exhibited in galleries across the world. All of the images I have used are from her website, here. There is also a nice interview of her, here. In the interview Rita Ackermann says that her art shows her learning experiences and social awareness she got from growing up in the "streets". I love the way that she uses media in unexpected ways. I also like her style of composition and figures.

Meditative Violence. 2010.
charcoal, spray paint, oil on paper
39.5 x 27 inches

Burnt 3. 2010.
enamel andspray paint on printed paper

Artist #27: Francis Bacon

Self Portrait.
Oil on Canvas. 1971.
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Francis Bacon is an artist born in Dublin Ireland in 1909 and died of a heart attack in 1992. In 1928 he decided he wanted to be an artist after seeing a Picasso exhibition in Paris. His early work did not get as much success and he destroyed many of his early paintings. In 1944 the exhibition of Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion caused an uproar for its grotesque imagery. This work began the recognizable characteristics of Francis Bacon's work.

Three Studies for the Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
Oil on Board. Triptych. 1944. Tate, Britain.

Bacon's work was always done from photograph, never drawn from life. His imagery is often mutilated, and shows emotional anxiety and alienation. Bacon's work also often draws from Crucifixion and Greek imagery. It is thought that his work has to do with corruption of the human spirit.

Study After Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X
Oil on canvas. 1953. Des Moines Center, Iowa.

I love the abstraction and heightened emotive quality of Francis Bacon's paintings. The deformed figures and their horrific qualities make them all the more interesting to me. All info and pictures are from this site which does an awesome job of explaining the imagery behind Francis Bacon's work.

Artist #26: Judy Fox

Judy Fox is a sculptor from New York that works primarily making realistic looking ceramic figures. She has exhibited across the United States and Europe. Judy Fox studied at Yale and Skowhagen for her undergraduate work and received an Art History Masters degree from the Institute of Fine Art at NYU. She also has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Snow White and the Seven Sins. PPOW, NY. 2007.

Fox is known for her life size sculptures of nude children. Her work explores the individual and the image they are presenting or that is projected. The image examples included are both from her website, here. The Snow White and the Seven Sins delves into the iconic character of Snow White. The lovely young girl is surrounded by seven surrealist looking "dwarf" creatures, each representing a deadly sin. The strange creatures appear crude and impure in contrast to the young woman's form. The other image shows her well known child figures. Each figure is in a classical pose of figures, such as the one on the left in a sensual Vishnu pose. Their nudity makes them appear vulnerable and child-like, while their poses are recognizable and adult, full of meaning and cultural understanding.

Love and War. Kohler Art Center, WI. 2001

Artist #25: William Kentridge

WOOOHOOOOO!!!! SUPER-HAPPY-EXCITED!!! This post marks that I am now half-way through the 50 artists posts for my Senior Seminar Summer Blog!!!! ^_^ <3 YAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAYYY!!!

Ahem... now to the actual artist post. >.>

William Kentridge. Walking Man. 2000.
Linocut on rice paper.
@VMFA. Photo by me

William Kentridge is an artist from Johannesburg, South Africa. He graduated from the University of Witwatersrand in 1976 and also studied mime and theater in Paris. Kentridge uses a wide variety of media in his work, such as film/animation, drawing, sculpture and performance art. He has exhibited around the world.

William Kentridge. Drawing from Stereoscope 1998–99.
Charcoal, pastel, and colored pencil on paper, 47 1/4 x 63" (120 x 160 cm).
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo Credit

Much of his work focuses on the dissolution of the apartheid in South Africa. William Kentridge uses poetic visuals that have a sobering effect on the viewer to the events and experiences that he lives in. I love his charcoal animation! He films in a stop-animation way that shows the charcoal being drawn, erased and drawn again to create the visual of motion. So I'll put a couple examples of that up here and also include a link to the video from Art21 that shows his more recent work and explains what he does better.

Artist #24: Julian Schnabel

Years After the Bavanda Lounge
Oil and Fiberglass on Linoleum, 1985.

Julian Schnabel is an American artist. He has a BFA from the University of Houston and was admitted to an independent study program with an application that included his artwork slides between two slices of bread. He is best known for his broken ceramic plate paintings as much as his brash boisterous personality. Schnabel once claimed, "I'm the closest thing to Picasso that you'll see in this *#@ life". He is also well known for being a director of movies (Basquiat, Before Night Falls, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).

Understanding Self Hatred
Oil on Velvet, 1981.

I saw Schnabel's piece, Understanding Self Hate, at the VMFA. I like a lot of Julian Schnabel work because of his use of interesting media for his paintings (satin,, ceramic plates, carpet, linoleum, velvet) and his very emotionally connected style that is so creative and basic. You can check Julian Schnabel's website out here (also where the images are from) and I'll just throw a few video links in about him also (I don't own the videos either) here and here.

Portrait of Lola
oil, plates and bondo on wood, 1996

Artist #23: Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh

Four Queens. 1909.
Wood, paint, Gesso. @VMFA

Margaret MacDonald was a Scottish artist who lived from 1864 to 1933. She was born in England, studied at Glasgow School of Art, and set up an independent studio with her sister, Francis, in the mid 1980s. She married Charles Rennie Mackintosh, an architect, in 1900.

Ophelia. 1908

Much of the artwork that Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh did was in collaboration with either her sister or her husband after she was married. She was known to make decorative panels for furniture or the walls of the rooms her husband would construct. She also worked with watercolor, metalsmithing, and textiles. However her most popular medium would be gesso and paint on wood. Her style is distinct and enchanting.

The May Queen. 1900.

I found her biography information, here, at the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Society website. The first image was photographed by me as seen at the VMFA and the rest of the images are from this website's image gallery.

O Ye, All Ye That Walk in Willowwood. 1903.
Panel for the Salon de Luxe, Willow Tea Rooms, Sauchiehall Street.
(Painted gesso on hessian, set with glass beads)

Artist #22: Gregory Crewdson

Gregory Crewdson is an artist who uses digital photography. He has a MFA in photography from Yale in 1988. He has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. Crewdson is an Adjunct Professor for Yale University School of Art Graduate level Photography. He also has published books of his photography.

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled, 2004
Digital chromogenic print
64 1/4 x 94 1/4 inches framed

Crewdson works in two different ways. The first is on location, which makes the photograph have a lot to do with the location and its place or setting. The other is through creating a scene by soundstage. The soundstage is a created world of Gregory Crewdson's making; a space for setting up invented sets. A common theme in his photographs is pregnant women. Crewdson says in an interview, here, that he does this because it is the perfect metaphor for an in-between moment.

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled, 2003
Digital chromogenic print
64-1/4 x 94-1/4 inches framed (163.2 x 239.4 cm)
Ed. of 6

What I love about Crewdson's work is the way his settings take on a life of their own and seem to describe an emotion. My favorite is the one with the girl in the water from the Twilight series. She almost seems like Ophelia. All of the images are taken from the Gagosian Gallery site, here.

GREGORY CREWDSON
Untitled, 2001
Digital C-print
Image size: 48 x 60 inches (121.9 x 152.4 cm)

Artist #21: Fred Tomaselli

Big Raven, 2008.
Acrylic, photocollage, and resin on wood panel, 84 x 72 in.
Photo Credit

Fred Tomaselli is an American painter from California. He has exhibited in both group and solo shows across the country. I saw one of his works at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. It captured me from far away with the large painting of a bird, rendered with bright color against a plain black background. Tomaselli's painting then surprised me by being even more interesting close up.

Woodpecker. 2008. @VMFA
Acrylic, gouache, photo collage, resin on wood panel.

What makes Tomaselli's art so amazing is the fine detail of form and pattern within a larger object. For example, the bird's beak is made up of multiple imagery of different types of birds beaks. He allows the viewer to see the anatomical parts that make up his artificial forms. On his White Cube page, here, he says, "It is my ultimate aim, to seduce and transport the viewer in to space of these pictures while simultaneously revealing the mechanics of that seduction.”

Woodpecker (detail)

Also, I'll throw in a great video of Fred Tomaselli explaining what he does.

Artist #20: Christine K Harris

Berries for Mother

Cover Up

Christine K Harris is a local Virginia artist. She graduated from Virginia Wesleyan College with a degree in Art and Psychology and from Eastern Virginia Medical School with a masters in Art Therapy. Harris works as a teacher of art and an art therapist with programs for children healing from loss.

Forgotten Promise

Christine Harris considers her artwork to be a record of her processes of personal emotions, observation, and dreams. Her mixed media work is a collection of found objects that build stories. She uses a mix of both animal and human qualities in her work and often uses birds as a theme. According to Harris, birds represent not only freedom of flight, but before that the helplessness and need for nurturing or restrained to a cage.

Someday Never Comes

The images shown here are all from her website. I highly recommend visiting her website, here, for more images of her artwork, because they have better close ups. I think that what is so great about Christine Harris's work is her attention to small details and little found objects on all sides of the work, making them truly sculptural, and that add another dimension to her stories. I really enjoyed seeing her works displayed at the Contemporary Art Center in Virginia Beach.

Regeneration

Artist #19: Jason Levesque

Jason Levesque, also known as Stuntkid, is a graphic artist from Norfolk. He has exhibited in galleries over the world and had a article written about him in the Virginian Pilot. Levesque also works full time as a lead animator for the Norfolk company, Grow Interactive.

Levesque creates his version of the "pinup girl" that usually adds an element of something out of the norm or somewhat gross. He plays with the ideas of an idealized female form that is both beautiful and repulsive. The medium for Jason Levesque's artwork is Photoshop. He draws his images from scanned in model photos or drawings.

I'm totally in love with Levesque's work. I love the concept he works from and the style of his designs. They are all visually intriguing and beautifully constructed. The images are all from his website, here.

Artist #18: Elizabeth Levesque

Elizabeth Levesque is an artist from Norfolk VA who is married to another artist (who I'll do a post on next) that was also exhibited in the Contemporary Art Center in Virginia Beach. She is a painter/web designer/crafts artist who has been in exhibitions across the country. This is Elizabeth Levesque's website, that has links to her blog and more info about her.

What attracted me to her work is her theme of the mystic and things that people use for fortune telling. Elizabeth Levesque uses these themes in her paintings because as a child she remembered playing with the Ouija board with her friends and trying to contact ghosts. She uses the planchette as a symbol in her works for this reason.

I really love the style and ethereal feel of her paintings. I also love the fortune telling theme, because I think that even if people don't believe in those tools they are greatly used and enjoyed by many. The images pictured are all from her website.

Artist #17: Amanda Outcault

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Amanda Outcault is a local painter and metalsmith. She has exhibited in Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio. She had 3 paintings on display at the Contemporary Art Center's Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes Exhibition. Outcault's website, here, has all of her work on display.

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Amanda Outcault describes her artworks as showing the changing roles of women. She says that some of her work describes finding something magical in the ordinary tasks. One of the elements of her paintings are the use of goldfish as a symbol. Outcault says they can show both the meanings of abundance and happiness, but also of domestication and entrapment in small spaces. She is inspired by life and her environment.

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Paintings I saw at the CAC: Fredrick and Friends Accompany Manda On A Bathing Adventure, Manda Pauses the Calorie Count, and Lauren and Danielle Wonder what Happened to the Cookies. I loved her paintings that were on display at the CAC because of the goldfish. There was so much wonder and excitement in them. I could really feel the beauty of life in the everyday experience.