Internet Resarch Project - Lydia Gosling

As we have begun talking about WHAT drawing is, you are now looking at artists who utilize this medium a little more in depth with our research project. PLEASE read over what has been posted. Try not to duplicate if possible. You are not limited to the artists on the website, but it is a good jumping off point for research into contemporary artist who draw.

These lists are in no particular order: 

10 artists that I like:

1) Sylvia Ji - http://www.sylviaji.com/

2)(Illustrator) October Jones (aka Joe Butcher)

3) Benjamin Shine - http://www.benjaminshine.com/

4) Alex Konahin - http://www.behance.net/konahin 

5) Diego Fazio - http://diegokoi.deviantart.com/

6) Gregory Thielker - www.gregorythielker.com/‎

7) Omar Ortiz - http://omarortiz.wordpress.com/

8) Pawel Kuczynski - pawelkuczynski.com/‎

9) Heidi Taillefer - http://www.heiditaillefer.com/Home.html

10) Choi Xoo Ang

10 artists that I don't like.... 

Weird that some of them are politicians:

1) Vladmir Putin

2) George W. Bush

3) Marc Chagall

4) Alexander Calder

5)  Fernando Botero

6) Bernard Buffet

7) David Hockney

8) Henri Matisse

9) George Condo

10)  Alex Katz

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Sylvia Ji -  http://www.sylviaji.com/ -
b. 1982. BFA Illustration ‘05, Academy of Art, San Francisco
Currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. 

"Never mind the mezcal, there's more than a bit of mescaline about the psychedelically tinged work of Los Angeles painter Sylvia Ji, which in her latest collection Interwoven continues previous meditations on the Mexican culture's compelling obsession with beauty and death through studies of women and textiles. " - She really doesn't talk about her work, she is Korean-American. She moved to Los Angeles to take a job as a fashion designer, but spends her off hours painting. Since graduating she has been a featured artist in twenty shows. Her first solo exhibition was presented 2007. Since that time she has exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Tokyo, Japan.

Sylvia Ji is just one of those artists that I have followed for a long time, and every new piece she puts up on her website I fall in love with. Her work is very interesting to me as she crosses lines of culture, seeing that she is of Korean decent, but is really interested in Mexican culture, specifically within the Day of the Dead culture. One of the reasons I really love her work, aside from her technical skills, is that I have lived around the Day of the Dead culture for my entire life, and I have a very nostalgic feeling when I look at her work.

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George W. Bush - There isn't a website that he hosts for his art, but if you just google him, you will find much more of his horrifying art.

 First of all, I never wanted to see George W. Bush in the shower, let alone see his paintings. Not much is really said about it, seeing that he is a former president, and I believe that he keeps painting because he is a former president, and no one tells him to stop. At least they told Adolf Hitler to stop... Academically speaking, I do not care at all for the subject matter, and the technical skill is unpleasant to look at. Not only the flatness of the painting effects makes it hard for me to like, but the fact that every aspect of the painting is just bad. The proportioning, the water being only in a straight line, The fact that the body is positioned to the right, but somehow we can see him looking straight on at us from the mirror (which is impossible). These aspects of the painting leave me wondering if he just had painted himself from his mind that this is what he looks like when he's in the shower, or if he painted from life? No thank you Mr. President... no thank you.

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George Condo - American, b.1957) is a Contemporary visual artist who creates paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints. His work has influenced a whole generation of artists. Condo attended the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, where he studied art history and music theory.Condo met Jean-Michel Basquiat (American, 1960–1988), and this meeting prompted Condo to move to New York and seriously pursue a career in art. He worked in Andy Warhol''s factory, applying gold dust to Warhol''s Myths series. One of Condo''s greatest collaborative partners was William S. Burroughs (American, 1914–1997). Condo is also well-known for book and album cover art. He provided the cover art for Jack Kerouac''s Book of Sketches and did the album cover for Kanye West''s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

"Seated Female Figure" - Oil on canvas - George Condo

George Condo is just one of those artists that I will never like, let alone understand why he's so obsessed with women's breasts and clowns. There's something about that combination that just doesn't want to sit well with me. I looked at a lot of his work online, trying to find something that would let me sneak a "he's not that bad," thought in, but no. I do not enjoy looking at any of his pieces, and I do not understand why Kanye West used him for an album cover. But Kanye doesn't have the authority to say what is "good art" or "bad art." Maybe it's because he believes that he "changed the game!" I have no idea. Enough ranting. This piece has several issues with it both contextually and technically that I wish weren't there. Contextually, the clown/naked woman (is that another leg that has no shoe on that is the size of a pipe?) with a distorted face doesn't give me much narrative within the piece that I can read about the subject. If anything I read more about the artist, sensing that he needs to be heavily medicated. In terms of technical aspects, the blending looks quality, but the painterly marks look very childish, and maybe that's why I have a hard time looking at this piece, besides the naked clown woman...

Here's Kanye's Album cover if you haven't seen it. I hate it. It's weird and makes me really uncomfortable.