painter: William Theophilus Brown

Another figurative painter who uses loose brush-strokes to suggest pose and expression, also fond of darker hues of blue and green. He was a predominant member of the Bay Area Figurative movement which included artists David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff, Wayne Thiebaud, and James Weeks (more on that to come).
Untitled (Figure on lounge chair), 1961
Two Men in an Interior, 1960

Painter: Fritz Scholder

An American artist who prolifically explored the plight of Native Americans and exposed the weighted cliché behind American notions of guilt and dominance in that regard. His style, to me, seems indebted slightly to Francis Bacon, many of his compositions verge just shy of imitative. His use of negative space pleases me, atmospheric blanks are not easy to depict. His figuration is also marvellous and twisted, always retaining the notion of the whole distorted by circumstance and perception.

Snake Dancer, 1967
oil on canvas
Gift of Mr. John B. L. Goodwin, 1969



Kiva Rest, 1977,
acrylic on canvas,

Scholder’s familiarity with pueblos are evident in Kiva Rest. Centrally located in a pueblo village, the kiva structure is a site where men would perform their daily activities as well as their secretive religious ceremonies with sacred dancing and dramatic reenactments of Pueblo origins. Scholder employs vivid colors and lively gestures to express the celebratory atmosphere in a kiva. He offers a glimpse into that mysterious world through an unidentifiable, seated figure engulfed in the glow of firelight. Even the cool shadows come alive with a flickering of intense colors. The colors in Kiva Rest also imply the personal relationship Scholder has with the southwest landscape and culture from the warm yellows and pinks to the turquoise blues. via here

z Scholder
Indian and Contemporary Chair, 1970

oil on linen (Smithsonian)

random illustrations

portrait of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor

pastel drawings from the V&A japan room

oil pastel drawings for Murakami Project

Portrait of Haruki Murakami

painter: susan lichtman

Susan Lichtman's paintings are derived mainly from memory, sketches and some photo reference. I've been really interested recently in how to successfully integrate figures into interiors without having the figure as the focal point. Lichtman's painting have hints of narrative in painted domestic scenes and generally several characters at once. Her colour palette and way oflight arrangement is the most exhilarating aspects of the compositions.

Family Cleaning
2002

Times on the Porch
2004
Cinderella
2003
Step Mother
2004
The Diligent Mother
2006
Fabric
2008

painting: The Orientalist

RB Kitaj

The Orientalist 1976-7

'The Orientalist' belongs to Kitaj's portraits, including 'The Jew' and 'The Greek' that relate to the theme of the expatriate. Kitaj is himself an expatriate. He was born in Ohio and has spent most of his life living between America and Britain, caught between two cultures. His stepfather, a Viennese research chemist, was a refugee from Nazi Europe. 'The Orientalist' was an invention, but for Kitaj he represents a real character, evoking the expatriate's sense of displacement. The artist has written: 'Some people live out their lives in places they don't come from, assigning themselves to a strange race of men and an alien sense of land and city... The real subject here is un-at-homeness'.

painter: Sarah Dougherty

Found these paintings on this site, I believe it's an exhibition called Room Paintings for the UCLA department of art MFA 2012. These are all by Sarah Dougherty. She is a gardener, teacher and painter who has a very interesting agenda:

Growing non-capitalistic creativity by tending the wild and relishing in moments where function determines spontaneous form through ingenuity in limited resources and the tenacious will to thrive.

Let's dismantle whitestream culture's grip on education, law, art and agriculture by giving space for female & plant knowledges to emerge through theory and practice.

Dougherty is based in LA and paints intimate interiors and spaces with that sense of wonky mundanity I find so pleasing. They're confortable images that are site specific. For my final project I'm quite interested in exploring the spaces where images of interiors can inhabit and I'm curious about the scale and purpose of these images.

more images after the jump

printer: Cressida Campbell

Cressida Campbell is an artist I came across recently as well, I've posted her work after Erik Mattijssen because I feel there's a dialogue between both their interests in still life, interiors, colour and pattern. What is really extraordinary about this Astralian artist's work is the laborious woodblock process that drives it:

Most artists see print-making as a means of making their work accessible to a wider audience by producing large editions. Not Cressida Campbell: her prints are made in editions of one. She begins with a sheet of plywood on which a design is carefully drawn. "If the drawing is wrong, then everything goes wrong", she says; so this part of the process absorbs a great deal of time and concentration. Next, she carves out each line with a small engraving tool, and uses small brushes to apply watercolours to the separate segments. After several coats of paint, she freshens up the image with a spray of water and takes a single impression. The end result is one coloured block, and one print - its mirror image.

The effect her process has is both the graphic benefits of traditional woodcuts and a painterly aesthetic that is not overwrought. Her interiors feel elaborate rather than decorative.

painter. Erik Matijssen

via here

Erik Matijssen

(b.1957) is an artist currently working in the netherlends. He falls squarely into the 'beat me to it' category of awesomeness. His spectacular use of colour and construction of spaces, light and still life is almost impeccable in my view. I believe most of the work displayed below is from the last couple of years. Matijssen is also a teacher and tutor in his native Netherlands and has appeared in numerous group and one-man shows. I'm surprised I haven;t seen his work before as he's incredibly prolific. What I really enjoy about his compositions is the slightly off perspective of someone who's just walked into a room slightly tipsy, there's a palpable uneasiness but it's one worth savouring.

BBC: Frozen Planet part two

Screengrabs of part two of BBC's Frozen Planet!