Jordan Casteel is from Denver, Colorado. She received her Bachelor’s Degree from Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, then her Master’s from Yale School of Art. Jordan Casteel’s first solo exhibit was displayed in the Denver Art Museum until August of 2019. The exhibit displayed thirty paintings collectively titled: Returning the Gaze. Jordan Casteel’s paintings create art out of everyday people, specifically Black people. Casteel’s motive is to reveal people who often go overlooked. Now living in New York, Jordan Casteel continues to paint portraits of Black men addressing Black masculinity as a part of her passion for social justice. Jordan is changing the way society views Black men while emphasizing Black culture and its pertinent impact on our society’s larger culture. Jordan gets inspiration from her neighborhood in Harlem, New York, which is still heavily populated by Black Americans. I am drawn to Jordan Casteel’s work particularly because she casts black men beautifully. I enjoy that she does not change the cultural parts of Black Americans to place them in her art. The Black men she paints are still dressed in their everyday attire. Some of Jordan’s paintings even show Black men naked. These paintings draw attention to Black men’s humanity. In Jordan’s paintings, it is very apparent that Jordan Casteel focuses on the people who surround her, people who she sees and finds a home in. The environment of the paintings, the clothing on the men, the objects in the paintings can all be identified as pieces of black culture.
Jordan Casteel, Galen, 2014Jordan Casteel, The Baayfalls, 2017Jordan Casteel, Subway Hands, 2017Jordan Casteel, Ashamole Brothers, 2015 Jordan Casteel, Shirley, 2018Jordan Casteel, Three Lions, 2015Jordan Casteel, Ato, 2014
“…Once your life is too stable, your creative dies.”
-Yoshitaka Amano
Post by Diego Manalili
Yoshitaka Amano has a wide variety of experiences as a character designer, fine art painter, Japanese artist, theater and scenic designer, costume designer, and animator. Notable for his contributions towards the Japanese animation industry, video games, graphic novels, and the fine arts of painting. His art style revolves around western comic books, Art Noveau, and Japanese woodblock prints according to his work website, “yoshitakaamano.com”.
AMANO’S BIOGRAPHY
Yoshitaka Amano was born on March 26, 1952, and somewhere near Shizuoka, Japan. At the age of fifteen, he moved to a company dormitory to work at Tatsunoko Productions, an animation studio. He created character designs for animation shows such as Gatchaman, Hutch the Honeybee, and Cashaan: Robot Hunter.
He left Tatsunoko Productions at the age of thirty in order to work on more independent projects. When he left the studio, his employers and co-workers were skeptical about his departure, because he was throwing away his financial stability. However, in response to this, he said,”…But once your life is too stable, your creative dies”.
AMANO’S WORKS
Fine Arts
Illustrations
Fine Arts
Illustrations
Character Design
Costume Design & Fashion
Animation
Deva-Loka
Warning: sexual nudity
AMANO’S ART STYLE
I have previously mentioned his art style had an influence from western comic books, Art Noveau, and Japanese woodblock print.
Art Noveau
Japanese Woodblock Print ukiyo-e
Western Comic Books
Art Noveau is an art style that focuses on more of a decorative and fine art aspect within designs.
Japanese Wood Block Prints utilized flat coloring and heavy lines.
Amano’s art style heavily focuses on a variety of fantasy and sci-fi as it can be seen in his works. In 2008 at an art gallery, Gallerie Michael Jansen in Berlin, Germany, Daniel Boese, a critic on the Artforum mentions how Amano was a “superflat concept”, not figuratively but litterally. Boese says Amano’s paintings had fused with “graphic design, pop culture, and the fine arts…”
Marela Zacarías is an artist from Mexico City, Mexico, specializing in the merging of sculpture and paint in a rather flowing way. Zacarías’s work embodies the challenge of making a sculpture fold and fall in the same way fabric may, while also filling her pallets full of color and vibrancy. Along with a large amount of pigment Zacarías uses, she also fills her winding sculptures with geometric shapes and designs.
According to Zacarías’s profile written on Art21, most of her works are, “built from window screens, joint compound, and polymer before being painted in bold, geometric, abstract patterns.”
As you would assume, Zacarías’s process for making these intricately wound pieces is “labor- and research-intensive,” as claimed on her own artist site. Most of her pieces are even designed for the exhibit she is working for at the time.
Art21 said, “Zacarías’s works are often inspired by the sites for which they are planned, such as Works Progress Administration murals in the Brooklyn Museum, Mayan textile colors for an installation in Mexico, and a map of Brooklyn for a new hotel in the borough.”
Not only has Zacarías taken part in numerous exhibitions, but she has also held solo exhibits and even commissioned large-scale permanent pieces for “Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Facebook, the William Vale in Brooklyn, and the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico,” according to her site.
The Brooklyn Paper also looked into these lively sculptures, saying, “Like much of Zacarias’s work, the sculptures are meant to interact with the architecture of a specific communal space — the pieces, resembling huge, living blankets, seem to have just finished crawling the walls and balconies of the museum’s cavernous entrance lobby.”
Zacarías’s way of breathing life into her sculptures translates with every twist and turn of the surprisingly harden sculptures she manifests.
Coatlicue’s Return: Solo Exhibition at Wasserman Projects in Detroit
Coatlicue’s Return: Solo Exhibition at Wasserman Projects in Detroit
Coatlicue’s Return: Solo Exhibition at Wasserman Projects in Detroit
Mannahatta, Site specific installation at William Vale
Red Meander: Permanent Installation at American Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico
Katharina Grosse is a German artist born in 1961 who combines a wide array of bright colors with architecture, sculpture, and paintings to create massive visual installations. Before her career took flight, she studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. There, she pursued a degree in painting. She now teaches at the university, but continues to explore and display her artistic ability.
Though considered a painter and sculptor, traditional painting is not what she is known for. Her techniques primarily consist of spray paint to create a specific movement among her pieces. The ideas that may come to mind when viewing Grosse’s works may resemble psychedelics as the color schemes and motions present are extremely captivating. Her installations have lead to major accomplishments and awards, such as the Oskar Schlemmer Prize, Fred-Thieler-Preis, Stipendiaten der Stiftung Kunstfonds, and the Villa-Romana-Stipendium, Florence. Her works have been displayed in a multiple museums, such as the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland.
Grosse often calls psychology into question as her works challenges the reality of things as her pieces are much larger than what you would normally see. Viewers are immersed in a world of art that physically surrounds them rather than sits on a wall to be stared at. Her work can be described as an environment as so much space can be taken up, but these environments explore hard-to-imagine dimensions and illusions, greying the line between imagination and reality as viewers can almost be swallowed by the works. Grosse is a very unique artist that utilizes a space in a very engaging and intense way using a multitude of colors and forms that sometimes include furniture and often contrast each other.
Two Younger Women Come In and Pull Out a TableThey Had Taken Things Along to Eat TogetherMumbling MudI Think This Is A Pine TreeAtoms Inside BalloonsThe Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped
Mark Whalen is an Australian-born, Los Angeles based artist. His artwork exhibits dark humor and vibrancy. The figures he puts in his pieces interact with space, time and narratives through his paintings and ceramic works.
“Grab Bag” Miniature collection and “Ramble Ramble”
Whalen is inspired to create these pieces based on his ongoing interest that he describes as “Life’s puzzling duality”. The overall feeling of his pieces gives the effect of discomfort or struggle. All of the characters are seen to be in states of work, play, pleasure or pain.
“3 men, 1 net”
In this piece, Each pastel male or female interacts with the objects around them as if they are struggling to get away or that they feel trapped.
In 2016, Mark Whalen’s work filled Australia’s Chalk Horse gallery. Each piece gives emotion to tension and anxiety based on how the characters react to the objects around them. His paintings, sculptures, and ceramics have been exhibited throughout Australia and internationally. His work is held in the National Gallery of Austalia, Artbank, and numerous other private art collections.
The Chalk Horse Gallery offers insight into Whalen’s pieces by commenting, “The exhibition sums up contemporary anxiety, that you see not only in art but also in fashionable dressing or other activities connected to our identities.” The pieces speak to people because they make people feel as if the characters are struggling with self-exploration which each person has dealt with sometime in there lives.
“Double Knot” and “Tied Up”
In the first piece, the two characters are sandwiched between three objects held together between a rope. This shows that you shouldn’t feel alone in situations.
In the second piece, the character is tangled between two ropes and seems to struggle while he looks down at himself. This shows the struggles of anxiety and finding balance in oneself.
“Squeeze” Miniature collection and A picture of Mark Whalen
Takashi Murakami is a Japanese painter, sculptor, installation artist, curator, and entrepreneur. Murakami was born in Itabashi City, Tokyo, Japan during 1962. He graduated from Tokyo University of the arts in 1993. He is a contemporary artist who was the key founder of the Superflat movement (Rebbeca Sieferle). Superflat’s most defining characteristic is that it shows the shallowness of consumer culture. It is a blend of fine art and commercial art, further pushing consumerism. Alright now that the boring stuff is over, let me tell you why he interests me.
One of the most likable attributes of Murakami is his character. Murakami’s artwork is known to give the viewer positive feelings. The flowers behind him are what he is most known for, and they are always smiling-just like him.
Murakami’s enthusiasm and positive demeanor is not the only thing that will catch your eye. He is a huge influence in the fashion culture, and has done many projects with large brands. His style is sure to turn a few heads, and that has led him to work with some of the biggest names within the fashion industry.
As you can see, Murakami’s influence on pop culture is astounding. He took the fashion and skate industry by storm, followed by the high-class and pop enthusiasts. All of the works shown above were collaborations with either popular brands or artists. Here is a collection of Murakami’s solo pieces.
727. Takashi Murakami, 1996.
Supernova. Takashi Murakami, 1999.
Blue Flowers and Skulls. Takashi Murakami, 2012.
Murakami’s work is influenced by Japanese pop and anime. I found this really interesting because of how prominent he is in pop culture. Pop culture has not incorporated the Japanese and anime culture until this decade, but it is now extremely prevalent-partly due to Murakami’s role in this. Some of Murakami’s work is more clearly anime inspired-for example..
If you are interested in pop-culture, anime, fashion, skate, and positive expression then I would highly recommenced looking into Murakami more. Thank you.
Jeff Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania 1955. He received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1976. He had his first solo exhibition in 1980 but has been showcased internationally and holds three spots in the top-ten list of most expensive artwork by living artists. He is most known visually by his larger-than-life colorful, reflective balloon animal depictions. Labeled in the art community as a Neo-pop or post-pop artist, Koons dislikes labels and the idea of his artwork having hidden meanings and wants the view to make their own judgement based on first glance perceptions.
His notable works are Rabbit (1986) which in May 2019 sold for $91.1 million and became the record holder for most expensive artwork by living artists, followed by Balloon Dog (Orange) (1994-2000) one of a five-part series, sold for $58.4 million in November 2013, and then Hanging Heart (Magenta/Gold) (1994-2006) which sold for $23.6 million in November of 2007.
My personal favorite is a piece of Koon’s titled Puppy (1992), a standalone piece that stands permanently installed at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, in Bilbao Spain, made of stainless steel, wood, soil, mesh, an internal irrigation system, and of course living, blooming flowers.
My favorite couple of sculptures of his are in a series called “Antiquity” and convey traditional figures in that “neo-pop” way of bright colors and reflective material.
The reason I chose Jeff Koons is my love for his living sculpture Puppy, and it’s wild nature. No artist can predict how nature is going to grown or change, flourish or die, which makes the essence of the piece uncontrollable beyond the boundaries of the very skeleton of the sculpture. My reasoning behind the selections of statues from the Antiquity series shows the diversity of his sculptures, living flowers incorporated often, from solid granite to shiny metallic figures.
Margaret Keane was born in Nashville, Tn in September of 1927. Her paintings are mostly of children who have large, round eyes. She and her husband Frank Ulbrich divorced in 1955 and she took her daughter Jane to California for a new life. There she started selling portraits and paintings of people in North Beach, located in San Francisco. In 1955 Keane also met and married Walter Keane, and they eloped in Honolulu, Hawaii. Walter took a liking to Margaret’s paintings and began to claim them as his own, and quickly climbed to fame. He began selling inexpensive copies of the paintings, and copies of them on cups and plates.
Margaret began resenting Walter and wanted her paintings back and wanted everyone to know that they were hers. When Walter refused to tell the truth, she began creating paintings of a different style. While the eyes were still a little larger than normal, they didn’t depict children anymore, they rather portrayed adult women, that sometimes modeled after Margret herself. In 1965, she asked for a divorce from Walter and took him to court. This was to prove that she was the real artist of the paintings, not Walter. She got her name and paintings back, and Walter was left disgraced.
In 2014, a movie, produced by Tim Burton called Big Eyes, was produced and Margaret Keane was the center subject. It received a seven out of ten on IMDB and a seventy-two percent rating on Rotten Tomato. Margaret is still alive and well, Walter having passed away in December of 2000.
http://www.artnet.com/artists/margaret-keane/
Margaret Keane and Amy Adams Walter and Margaret Keane
John Jay Cabuay is a New York City illustrator. His work has been seen in many aspects of promotion and art such as newspapers, magazines, and book covers. He has a MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree which came from the Fashion Institute of Technology. He is also known for the artwork of the widely known book, “”Get Up, Stand Up” which is based on the song by Bob Marley. His graphic design is very illuminating and bold, creating a very beautiful masterpiece of saturation and texture. I found his book cover art amazing because with the book covers, he creates a very appealing image that people can almost tell a story behind. That’s the perfect area of art for a book cover with it being a story inside. He also flourishes in portraits and line art, layering vivid colors alongside bright and bold colors. He uses computer art, mainly photoshop in order to create a more professional and solid look for the pieces. With him being known to participate in many aspects of art, it shows how elusive he is with his talent and how he doesn’t limit himself from just one area in the art field. The reason why I chose John Jay is because him and I have a lot of resemblances when it comes to interest in the artist industry. I want to be able to do art in many different ways, from creating logos, to book covers and even museum paintings. I don’t want to be considered a “book cover artist” or a gesture drawing guru; I want to be known as the artist that goes above and beyond for each task he takes on. I’ve always doodled my own book cover images and wanted to create images that can be viewed by the public on a daily bases and what better way can someone’s art be viewed than being seen in a daily newspaper or top charting books. John Jay’s work is a simple art of beauty.
This picture is an example of Cabuay telling a story within his artwork without going deep into detail. When the viewer sees this picture, they begin to do the same thing the lady in the picture Is seen doing. In the piece, she is seen making a wondering gesture as to what the tanning machine may present to her. Once the viewer sees this, the proper support would be the several dangers of the tanning machine listed alongside the artwork. His artwork tells a story within a story. It creates the perfect coincide.
Carrie Mae Weems is a contemporary artist from Portland, Oregon. She was born in 1953. She trained in dance with the postmodern dancer Anna Halprin. She studied at the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, in 1981, where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts. She earned her Master of Fine arts at the University of California, San Diego in 1984. She then continued her studies in the Graduate program in Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley. Weems’ is best known for her photography creates art while working with text, video and audio installation, and digital images. Her first camera was given to her as a present from her boyfriend on her 20th birthday. When she first picked up the camera, she thought to herself, “Oh okay, this is my tool. This is It.” She has always had a powerful desire to create images.
Weems moved to Syracuse, New York in 1996 to be with her husband, Jeffrey Hoone, though majority of her family remains on the west coast. Weems’ mother, also named Carrie, her daughter faith, and many of her aunts and uncles appear in her early work.
Through her work, she investigates relationships, family, sexism, political systems, class, and the consequences of power, along with her views on global struggles for equality and justice. African Americans are primarily her main subject, but a concept of universality is present. Weems has stated that she wants “people of color to stand for the human multitudes” and for her art to resonate with audiences of all races. Over the years, she has engaged and participated in various solo and group exhibitions at notable national and international museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Frist Center for Visual Art, Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo in Seville, Spain.
Carrie Mae Weems has been presented with an abundance of grants, awards and fellowships. The Prix de Roma, The Anonymous was a Woman, The National Endowment of the Arts, The Tiffany Awards, and the Alpert have all been awarded to her. She was one of the first people to be given the US Department of State’s Medals of Arts in acknowledgement for her dedication to the State Department’s Art in Embassies program. She also was presented the MacArthur “Genius” grant, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, the Lucie Award for Fine Art, and the BET Honors Visual Artist Award. She was one of the four artists recognized at the Guggenhiem’s 2014 International Gala, and an recipient of the ICP Spotlights Award from the International Center of Photography.
The Kitchen Table Series:
This is one of her most well know photography projects. It is a story of a “self- possessed woman with a bodacious manner, varied talents, hard laughter, and multiple opinions.”This is the series that formed her career and inspired a new generation of Artists. The New York Time Style Magazine describes this body of work to represent the first time an African American Women could recognized her own self and experience in her art.
From the photography project “Colored People” 1989-1990 From the Photography Project “The Louisiana Project” 2003From the Photography Project “And 22 million Very Tired and Very Angry People” 1989-1990 From the Photography Project “Mayflowers Long Forgotten” 2003From the Photography Project Carrie Mae Weems & Social Studies 101, Operation: Activate” 2011From the Photography Project “African Jewels” 2009From the Photography Project “Dreaming in Cuba” 2001
