etching – nik uzunovski

Artist of the week: David Hockney

Posted on 29/09/2013 by nikuzo87 in Creative Practice

David Hockney (British, b.1937) is a painter, photographer, and set designer, first associated with the Pop Art movement, and later renowned for his intimate portraits and naturalistic scenes of both the everyday and the artificial of California life. Hockney was born in Bradford, England, and studied at the Bradford School of Art, exhibiting an extraordinary aptitude for draftsmanship. He later attended the London Royal College of Art, where he met fellow student R.B. Kitaj (1932–2007), who strongly influenced him and inspired Hockney to infuse the personally expressive into his works.

Hockney’s first works included common and commercial images, such as boxes of tea, which caused his early inclusion with the Pop Art movement. Hockney also favored a mix of literature and scandalous subject matter in his early work, including pieces on homosexuality inspired by Walt Whitman poems created in the Art Brut style of Jean Dubuffet. His mature work often draws on photographs, particularly after visiting California regularly in the 1960s, where he created naturalistic paintings with a flat, serene appearance, including his famous Swimming Pools series. He works in many mediums, including set design and photography. Hockney has held major retrospectives at the Royal College of Art in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He currently lives and works in California.

Celia Observing (not in Scottish Arts Coucil or Tokyo), 1976, etching (ed. of 60), 90.2 x 74.9 cm.

Table Flowable, 1991, colour lithograph (ed.44/500), 111.8 x 144.8 cm.

Text and images: http://www.artnet.com/artists/david-hockney/

Artist of the week: Richard Diebenkorn.

Posted on 11/08/201311/08/2013 by nikuzo87 in Creative Practice

Richard Diebenkorn (American, 1922–1993) was a versatile 20th century American painter. Born in Portland, Oregon, Diebenkorn grew up in San Francisco, where he attended Stanford University. Diebenkorn lived in several other locations around the United States before he returned to California, where he continued to produce his mature paintings. After two years of service in the United States Marine Corps, Diebenkorn studied at the University of New Mexico under the G.I. Bill and was immersed in the Abstract Expressionism, inspired by New York School Artists. Diebenkorn’s focus shifted, however, in the 1950s, when he began to produce Figurative paintings associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Inspired by the work of Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954), Diebenkorn drew on his bright Californian surroundings to create images defined by planes of carefully chosen color. After a decade and a half of painting figuratively, in 1967 Diebenkorn returned to abstraction, with a new geometric style different from his early Abstract Expressionist-inspired efforts. This is evident in his famous Ocean Park cycle, which he developed into 140 paintings from 1967, until his death in 1993.

Blue Loop, 1980, Aquatint printed in colors, 37.8 x30.2 cm.

Green, 1986, Etching, aquatint and drypoint in colors, 134.6 x 103.4 cm.

Images and text: http://www.artnet.com/artists/richard-diebenkorn/

Artist of the week: Joan Miró

Posted on 07/07/2013 by nikuzo87 in Creative Practice

After spending a few of his teenage years in a technical school, Joan Miró (Spanish, April 20, 1893–December 25, 1983) began in earnest his artistic career. He trained at Francesc Galí’s Escola d’Art in Barcelona from 1912 to 1915, after which he had his first solo show in Barcelona at the gallery of José Dalmau in 1918. Starting in 1920, Miró divided his time between Montroig, Spain, and Paris, where he commingled with poets such as Max Jacob, and took part in Dada activities. Dalmau organized a solo show for Miró in Paris at the Galerie la Licorne in 1921, and in 1924, Miró joined the Surrealist group. The consistently Abstract nature of his works, such as The Birth of the World (1925) lended well to the dream-like ambiance of Surrealism.

After a trip to the Netherlands in 1928, Miró created the series Dutch Interiors, in which amorphous forms entered into his work. On October 12th, 1929, he married Pilar Juncosa in Palma de Mallorca, and then moved to Paris. During this period, he rebelled against painting, and produced wood reliefs, assemblages, and collages. Although he was living in France, the influence of the Spanish Civil War can be observed in the intense color and strong imagery of Still-life with an Old Shoe (1937). Experimentation continued in Miró”s work until his death in 1983. His wide body of work included ceramics, various prints, drawing, and sculpture. Major projects include the 1958 ceramic murals The Sun and The Moon for the UNESCO building in Paris. He collaborated with Josep Llorens Artigas (Spanish, 1892–1980), and was awarded the Guggenheim Foundation’s Grand Prize. This collaboration can been seen in the artwork called Miró Artigas. Numerous retrospectives of his works have taken place during his lifetime and after.

Personnage, oiseaux, 1976, oil and pencil on wood, 37.1 x 31.5 cm.

Libre Del Sis Sentits II, 1981, Aquatint, (ed. 40/50), 72.4 x 54.6 cm.

Images and text: http://www.artnet.com/artists/joan-mir%C3%B3/

Artist of the week: John Currin.

Posted on 23/06/2013 by nikuzo87 in Creative Practice

Painter John Currin (American, b.1962) is known for his Figurative works, which draw on sources ranging from Renaissance painting traditions to 1950s advertisements. Currin was born in Boulder, Colorado, and received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and an MFA from Yale University. Currin first received critical attention for his sensual paintings of female nudes, noted for his combination of Old Master painting techniques with 1950s commercial sources.

He frequently portrayed his nude figures as examinations of the various female archetypes found in visual culture, with a caricatured sexuality and studied emotions. His later works include portraits and scenes painted with Mannerist aesthetics, featuring subjects with elongated, disproportionate limbs and in styles drawn from fashion magazines, pornography, and other commercial sources. Currin’s work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, at the Tate Gallery in London, and at the Venice Biennale. He currently lives and works in New York.