Art 21 Reflection#3

Florian Maier-Aichen:
Is an photographer who spends a lot of time perfecting his work. He spends a lot of time with color and shading in his work. Maier-Aichen uses an older camera that makes his pictures have this sort of older look to them. He also adds his own drawings to many of his pictures by taking the picture first and then adding his extra details after. Maier-Aichen is very keen on color and experiments a lot with adding different colors to his work, as well as using different filters. He uses colored filters on some of his pictures, which adds different tints of color to the places he wants color to show up. Maier-Aichen loves abstract art and tries to add little things to his work that makes it abstract in their own way. I can relate to his work because I am a photographer and photography is a passion of mine. Maier-Aichen will wait all day and night just to get the right shot and picture that he wants. He sometimes has multiple steps to his work, such as taking a bunch of pictures with the filter and then putting all of the pictures together to create one good one. Maier-Aichen will sometimes add things such as lines or abstract objects to his pictures. He also does a lot of color changes and object things to his work on the computer.

Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Is a photographer who takes pictures of lots of objects as well as 20th century architecture. Sugimoto works at his loft and is able to control the light and backdrop when he is taking pictures of objects like fossils at his home. He photos aren't crowded, they are pretty bland, but there is something about his process and the thing that he takes pictures of that really stand out. Sugimoto develops his pictures at his home in his dark room. Many of his pictures are just black, white, and gray, but some of them have some brown tones, he plays around with a lot of the neutral colors. He collects lots of fossils, which he takes pictures of and shows some great detail. Sugimoto uses an old camera to take his pictures. I can relate to his work because sometimes I think that taking a picture of something in just a plain color can make something look very beautiful. I like how his art style changes, some of it looks more modern and other subjects look more detailed.  Sugimoto has math in his 3D work, he also tries to design the setup for his space for his art shows. His work has good details and show how he looks at the objects and things in different ways.

Art 21 Reflection#2

Ellen Gallagher:
Is and Artist who uses lots of collage, paint, and carpentry in her work. Her goal is to show the moods, feelings, and different sides of people and things through her art. I like the way she takes regular pictures from newspapers and things and adds paint, and materials to her work to make it look amazing. She talks about peoples emotions and feelings in a picture that she makes come alive just from adding more materials to her work. Collage is something that I enjoy doing, but the way she adds to much more to the collage is what makes it into something that I can relate to and want to try out. She has a lot of characters in her works the come up more then once. Many of her photos are from Ebony magazines from the 1920s. She has collected all of these photos from over time to use in her art. For one of her shoots she took many different black in white photos and added her collage and color to them. Ellen also does some paper carvings of designs, shapes, patterns, and objects. She does tattooing in medal works of photographs and paintings. Other collages and project that she does has more meaning behind them as well as lots of different materials to create one large amazing piece.

Cai Guo Qiang:
Is an artist who uses gun powder to make his drawings come to life on the page. His goal is to show his audience that art doesn't always have to say something to be great, it can just be something. Qiang's father was one of his inspirations. His father used to draw little landscapes on used matchboxes, as well as paint on silk scrolls. He says that when he first starts a drawing it is like falling in love for the first time. Qiang makes his work not knowing how it will turn out in the end. In the end his is either happy with his love or he isn't. I like that way his paints look with the animals and shapes in the middle, and the explosion around them, it reminds me of spray paint kind of. He first draws the animals and shapes on the paper and then he sprinkles the gun powder around them in a way that keeps the shapes and such in a form people can see in his art. I can relate to his art because sometimes art isn't made to be perfect, it is made to be something unexpected and amazing at the same time. Imperfections in art are sometimes what makes the piece better then it already it.

Artist 21 videos

Jeff Koons: Is an artist who uses many different materials and objects in his work. His work is different from other artist I have scene because he uses many different bold objects in his work that send a message and work with his style. He is a very exact artist, so many of the things that he does happen for a reason. I can relate to his work because I think that using different materials in one piece of art work can make a great piece for the artist. Jeff Koons is trying to get different messages out with each piece of at work. One time what he did was put a big blown up lobster in a room and said that if you looked at it for a long period of time you would begin to picture something being burned by the stake. 

Marry Heilmann: Is an artist who started to create art in hopes of getting some sort of response from the people who look at it. She was someone who wanted the artist to think about what they where looking at and ask themselves questions. She wanted some responses that would make her look at her work and make her think about what she was doing. She became an abstract painter. One thing she tends to think about with her work is scale, titles, and possible music that may be playing in the background. One thing I liked is that with some of her paintings she wants to tell a story. As apposed to Jeff Koons, who uses lots of different mediums in his work, she mainly uses paint. Marry Heilmann tries to get emotions across in her work. I can relate to some of aspects of her work, like choosing a title that fits, but other parts I can relate to because when I am making a picture or taking a photo I just do it and don't think about what other people may thing about it. 

Visiting artist: Hamlett Dobbins

Hamlett Dobbins is an artist who makes his paintings abstract in a way that works with the materials and style he uses. My favorite piece of his art is a painting he did called 180 Finger Collective, Spring 2009, Memphis, Tennessee. This painting was something that stood out to me because most of the paintings are more colorful with not as clear figures as apposed to this painting that has a clear figure of a dragon and a person. The quote is also something that stood out to me that says, " I am in love with the world (to be whispered without a hint of irony)." I enjoyed the fact the the quote said I am in love with the world, while the dragon is flying over the world with the person on its back.  I also like how he made the background all one color and the dragon and quote are something that my eyes are drawn to. This piece fits in with the rest of his work because he uses his same abstract/fantasy concept when he is using the dragon, as well as the quotes that he has used in a couple other paintings he has done. One question I would like to ask Hamlett Dobbins is why do use tend to go with more abstract work as apposed to more figure or drawing from observation?

Principles of Design Research

 The work of art that I looked at was Self-Portrait on the Border Line Between Mexico and the Untied States by Frida Kahlo. The art piece was created in 1932. Frida Kahlo used the principles of design because she made sure that she used things like lights and dark to have her audience look at the most  important parts of the work. On the boarder line, between Mexico and the US, Kahlo created a self-portrait of herself. In this part of the work Kahlo had good use of proportion in her painting, by making sure the people looking at her piece first looked at the self-portrait of her, which was larger then the rest of the work. Frida Kahlo used contrasting things, like factories in the United States vs. old places that the Mesoamericans had in Mexico. The art work had good approximate symmetry with her in the middle of the picture and other aspects around her.  I enjoyed the work because she made sure it was from her view point of the two different places. She also used depth of field because she had a few things which were keys to the painting, like the factory building, which used leading lines along the page. She used a little bit of grouping when she had things that she put in clusters or drew them more then once. Overall the art piece was extremely good and she did a great job on getting a point her point about how Mexico and the United States are two different places, as well as her uses of the principles of design in many important parts throughout her work.