Artist 36: Eric Zener

Eric Zener is a contemporary photo-realist figurist painter whose work usually depicts individual figures--many of which are under water or near it. According to an interview with Art Business News, Zener is a self-taught painter and he creates his work as a cathartic relief for himself. He states: "My work is about psychological turning points and transformations and risk, taking that proverbial leap of faith, balanced with that quest for finding refuge, finding quietness and stillness and escapism."

For the most part, I feel that his work captures that introspective nature he describes. Each of his pieces have a certain sense of contemplativeness about them. They inspire self-reflection and consideration. Without a doubt, this is my favorite aspect of his work. However, the photo-realistic qualities are equally beautiful. The details of the water are particularly high quality. Ultimately, though, the appearance of isolation and notions of escapism are the main draws for me.

His website may be found here.

Artist 35: Maggie Taylor

Maggie Taylor is a contemporary figural and surrealist artist who primarily uses a flatbed scanner and photoshop to create her works. According to her artist statement, she scans the myriad items that she collects from ebay and flea markets and incorporates them into compositions. Similarly, the humans who populate her works are also scanned in photographs via flatbed. Very little of her artwork is actually hand made for the occasion. Rather, most is assembled "intuitively" to mirror the effects of a photograph.

What I like most about Taylor's work is that each of her pieces emit an aura of mystery. The fine details coupled with the unique positioning of the figures seem to allude to a greater meaning or narrative. Interestingly, most of these allusions are admittedly a farce. According to her artist statement, "There is no one meaning for any of the images, rather they exist as a kind of visual riddle or open-ended poem, meant to be both playful and provocative." In that respect, she certainly accomplishes her goal. Most of the fun in viewing her works is searching for an ultimate meaning that simply is not there.

Her website may be found here.

Artist 34: Chris Mars

Chris Mars is a contemporary abstract figural painter whose focus is on revealing the inner beauty of those society "labels" as monsters. According to his artist statement, this body of work is largely inspired by his older brother Joe, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was sixteen years old. As a child, Chris met face to face with the mental institutions his brother was frequently whisked away to and it profoundly influenced him to change the way people perceive those with mental illnesses. From that point on, his work attempted to show the ill as beautiful rather than monsters. For the most part, his artwork certainly reflects this goal.


While the physical artwork may not appeal to standard conventions of beauty, the concept is clear and evident within each composition. He states: " My work is about looking beyond the outer to the inner, and finding with this the true definition of Beauty - which is beyond form." This is particularly what I find so fascinating about his art. It is fundamentally personal, yet at the same time, it speaks universally.

His website may be found here.

Sketch Update 2: Master Studies

While these are certainly not accurate, here are a couple of master studies I've been working on. The first is Titian's "Venus and Adonis." The Second is Peter Paul Rubens's "The Judgment of Paris."

 

Venus and Adonis

The Judgment of Paris

Artist 33: Robert Schefman

Currently a Professor at the College of Creative Studies in MI, Robert Schefman creates hyper-realistic paintings that contain allegorical, witty, and emotional subject matter. For the most part, his work is characteristic of a consistent realist style. However, many of his compositions and brushwork resemble the baroque artist Vermeer. To this extent, his art predominantly emphasizes figures and fabrics with special attention paid to portraying unique perspectives on familiar art themes.

My favorite of his works, however, is his series on famous works throughout art history. In these pieces, he offers the viewer a unique perspective on iconic works that nearly everyone is familiar with. Michelangelo's Sistine chapel, Titian's Venus of Urbino, and Botticelli's Birth of Venus are a few notable examples. With these works, Schefman reminds us to consider the process of creating these  masterworks. No doubt, this is result of his work in theater set design.

His website may be found here.

Artist 32: Steven Assael

Steven Assael is a contemporary American realist painter. Working exclusively with live models, he creates works that combine naturalistic techniques with an overall classical aesthetic. Ultimately, this combination results in an array of beautiful figure pieces that appear both incredibly realistic as well as slightly idealized. Additionally, many of his works contain contemporary subject matter such as clothing and scenery. In this respect, Assael clearly conveys a modern sense of style with his portfolio.

What I like most about his pieces is that he achieves such a high level of detail while still retaining the texture of his brush strokes. This deliberate effort clearly distinguishes his work from photographs yet does not detract from the convincingness of the overall composition.

More of his work may be found at his website here.

Artist 31: Kathryn Jacobi

Kathryn Jacobi is a contemporary painter and printmaker. Equipped with a classical education in figure study, she creates realist paintings of figures with a high degree of chiaroscuro and Tenebrism. Interestingly, the subject matter of her artwork occupies a wide range of topics and emotions. Rather than stick with straight representational works, Jacobi combines realist imagery with abstract and imagined locales. However, the common thread between all of her works is her use of dynamic lighting and exquisite level of detail. According to her artist's biography, she always works on two seperate bodies of work consecutively. One is from direct experience with old photographs. The other is from her imagination.

Personally, I find Jacobi's work to be certainly inspirational.  Her representational works are highly reminiscent of Carravaggio but with more attention paid to showing texture. As for her imaginary works, they exude a potent sense of emotional vigor without sacrificing detail or content. Overall, both of her preferred styles are executed incredibly well. Seeing how she maintains a distinctive style throughout both endeavors is equally inspirational.

Her website may be found here.

Artist 30: Jason Shawn Alexander

Jason Shawn Alexander is a contemporary figurative painter and draftsman whose focus is portraying emotionally charged scenes. According to his website, his work sticks to the primary emotional condition of humanity as it is "what is really important." As such, his work does not fit clearly with any particular style. Instead, his art is a modern amalgamation of hyper-realism and abstract elements.

My favorite of Alexander's works is his series on mourning. Each of them portray a particular stage in the process and utilize a wide array of methods and styles to getting the message across. In the example to the right, you can see the figure degenerate from a fully shaded human with flesh and form to a contour drawing and further to just lines. What I find so particularly interesting about these works is that they combine realistic and abstracted qualities together in an attractive way that really pushes emotion and drama. He skillfully controls the amount of visual information the viewer may see in order to focus the attention to particular spots. Overall, he creates some incredible work.

His website may be found here.

Artist 29: Jenny Saville

Drawing heavily from classical tradition, Patricia Watwood creates figural paintings which fuse renaissance and contemporary aesthetics together. To this extent, many of her works depict "mythological, allegorical, and narrative themes" as well as ancient Greek motifs and color schemes. As far as her contemporary influence, it is evident that her figures are painted anatomically correct and appear less archetypal than renaissance figures. Clearly, her models are unique examples of real-life people rather than heavily idealized figures. According to her artist statement, the recurring theme in her work is "the spiritual human presence of the subjects in the paintings."

 What I like most about her work is that it appears fresh and new despite the myriad classical references and color schemes. The realistic portrayal of the figures in combination with the traditional style gives her art a nice balance that is aesthetically pleasing, familiar, and fresh all at the same time. 

Her website may be found here.

Artist 28: Mark Gibbons

Mark Gibbons is a concept artist and game developer currently working at Blizzard Entertainment. Drawing influence from comic books and video games, Gibbons creates works that he describes as overblown, muscular, and angular figures with heavy chiaroscuro. To his credit, this is just what he delivers. his figures are dark, proportionally exaggerated and dynamically lighted. Gibbons has worked for the games industry since the early nineties. His employers range from The Games Workshop, to Sony and currently Blizzard.

I find his work to be particularly interesting because of his unique combination of comic book style and traditional design elements. His portfolio of art clearly portrays dynamic figures with comic book contours however, it also contains painterly textures and almost caravaggio-esque lighting techniques. His rendition of Shelley's Frankenstein is a perfect exemplar of this.

More of his work may be found at his website here.

Sketch Update 1: Sisyphus

Here are some tentative sketches that I have made in preparation of my first piece based on the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Sisyphus was a trickster who fooled the gods by escaping his own death. Out of anger, the gods punished him by sending him to Tartarus with the pointless task of pushing a rock up and down a mountain for all eternity. post-modern philosopher Albert Camus took the myth to be representative of his own school of thought, Absurdism. According to his doctrine, Sisyphus's fate mirrors that of the modern man as both are forced into an existence of perpetual work without meaning.

Let me know what you guys think of my sketches so far. Ultimately, I plan on doing two pieces covering Sisyphus. One will illustrate his trek up the mountain and the other down.

Artist 27: Francisco de Zurbaran

A stylistic follower of Caravaggio, Francisco de Zurbaran was a baroque painter who innovated the devotional-religious archetypal format. Like many painters of the age, Zurbaran painted primarily from models and was an avid student of drapery. His work is usually characterized by single portraits dedicated to a saint or religious figure. Furthermore, the style typically attributed to his work is defined by dynamic lighting, dramatic poses, and a high degree of realism.

What I like most about Zurbaran's work is his intense concentration on his subject matter. The devotional pieces like that of Christ and St. Serapion are so focused in composition that the viewer must consider the sole matter of their suffering. Unlike other Baroque artists such as Rubens, Zurbaran's work is not cluttered with embellishing figures or irrelevant backgrounds. Instead, he delivers a refined statement that is clear and calculated. Ultimately, Zurbaran's art is heavily inspirational in its clarity of concept.

Artist 26: Francis Alÿs

 Francis Alÿs is Belgian performance artist and painter. Unlike many of the other artists covered within this blog, Alÿs's work is fundamentally concerned with concept rather than the physical product of his labors. In this regard, many of his works are intended to elicit reactions from the public--which is usually where his performances take place. Another characteristic of his works is movement; it is typical for him to perform while on the move in an urban area.

My favorite of his performances is "Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing."  In it, he pushed a large block of ice through Mexico city until it melted away to nothingness. Onlookers watched as he toiled at an ultimately pointless endeavor. Interestingly, this act mirrors the myth of Sisyphus, an ancient greek figure championed by Albert Camus as the everyman's hero. According to the myth, Sisyphus was doomed by the Olympian gods to push a rock up and down a mountain for all eternity. Alÿs faithfully recreated this myth for public in the streets of mexico city by pushing that block of ice. Interestingly, the street-dwellers were allowed to see it in-context so as to reflect upon their own more-or-less pointless toils. Overall, his concepts and execution are certainly admirable.


His website may be found here.

Artist 25: Todd Lockwood

Todd Lockwood is a concept artist, book-cover designer, and illustrator. After attending the Colorado Institute of Art, he landed a job designing book covers for sci-fi novels. Eventually, he got a job with Wizards of the Coast and currently designs characters and monsters for the Dungeons and Dragons franchise. His artwork is characteristic of serious, semi-realistic figural compositions--mostly of typical D&D subject matter. Unsurprisingly, Lockwood cites mythology to be a great inspiration for his work.

Personally, the most interesting quality I find in his artwork is his sense of epic scale present in his compositions. Most fantasy artwork teeters between displaying a vast and fantastical scenery or illustrating characters in battle. Interestingly, Lockwood's work seems to strike a perfect balance between the two. Both scenery and characters are main draws of his work. His compositions are unified excellently.

More of his work may be found at his website here.

Artist 24: Lana Lisitsa

Painter Lana Lisitsa creates figural works that attempt to show the emotional connections between the subject and ideas. Recently, her work has focused on the boundaries between the real and imaginary. In order to illustrate this, she utilizes distorted figures and exaggerated color schemes. According to her artist statement, she distorts her imagery because the further away from reality a person or object is, the more meaningful and emotionally charged it becomes.


What I like most about Lisitsa's work is the emotional presence. In each of her pieces there is a clear articulate sense of a particular feeling or emotion. Be it anger, disgust, or sadness, each work evokes a calculated emotional effect. True to her artist statement's claims, the distortion of her figures adds to that sense exponentially. Similarly, the broad brush strokes make the composition appear vague and suggestive, leaving more of the meaning to the viewer to make up. Overall, her work expresses emotion so well that the effect is almost overwhelming.

More of her work may be found here.

Artist 23: Hung Liu

Combining traditional Chinese painting motifs with historical photographs for reference, Hung Liu creates paintings that express the dichotomy between the western and eastern perspectives on Chinese culture. The photographs she uses for reference are "usually" those of Chinese citizens taken by foreigners. Effectively, this subject matter is suggestive of the western view of china looking from the outside in. To complement her references, she combines traditional Chinese painting motifs such as birds, flowers, and stamps. According to her artist statement, her work is ultimately a new form of history painting that dissolves the socialist propaganda of the images to re-portray these historical figures in a mythical mode.


Her work is simply fascinating. Within one composition, she manages to fit massive amounts of content. First, she has the borderline realist figure-work which has a sense of photographic authenticity, almost like an objective filter. Second, the cultural motifs add a reflective element to her compositions which makes the photographic reference personal. Additionally, the watercolor-esque streams trailing down in her compositions resemble the watered down effects of memories, further emphasizing the historical nature of her work. Overall, her work is beautifully arranged.

More of her artwork may be found here.

Artist 22: Glenn Rane

Along with Simwise Didier and Chris Metzen, Glenn Rane is an illustrator and art director employed by Blizzard Entertainment. Unlike the previous Blizzard artists I have covered, Rane's body of artwork is far more diverse. He creates "book covers, game box covers, magazine covers, concept art and patch artwork." To accomplish this wide range of work, he typically uses oil paint and Photoshop. Visually, his artwork may be defined as a comic book style approach with over-exaggerated figures. Furthermore, saturated colors are pervasive in nearly all of his works. 

I'm really fond of Rane's work. His compositions are dynamic and his color-work is notably intense. Simply put, his work is permeated with  a visually attractive style and a sense of "wow" derived from the exaggeration of his figures. In this respect, his work is perfect for book and game cover placement. It appeals to the fantasy gamer masses and delivers it in dynamic way.

More of his work may be found here.

Artist 21: James Roper

James Roper is a contemporary painter from the UK. His style is characterized by large bright blocks of color and stylized abstracted objects. According to an interview with The Ballad, Roper's work draws influence from Buddhist philosophy, anime, and Baroque art, a seemingly strange combination. However, at a glance one may easily see physical evidence of these influences. Buddhist and Christian symbols like cloud/energy formations and flowing fabrics are scattered throughout his pieces. Furthermore, his color schemes and line quality mimic the style and flow of Anime.  

What I like most about Roper's work is his clear utilization of his influences. In each of his pieces, one can easily identify the myriad references to his interests weaved together into visually appealing compositions. As a result, His works appear very similar to meticulous collages of ideas. Interestingly, it's appears as though he takes existing ideas, characters, or shapes, deconstructs them, then reconnects into something new. The piece to the right of this paragraph is a perfect example of this technique.

His website may be found here.

Artist 20: Banksy

Utilizing a combination of stencils, spraypaint, and paintbrushes, contemporary street artist Banksy creates satirical and political artwork in public on private property. The street is not his only domain, however. According to his website, he also creates many of his works in traditional formats to be placed inside. His identity is formally anonymous, but his base-location has been identified as the UK. His art may be vaguely characterized as mostly figural work which reveals inconsistencies or problems with contemporary global society in humorous or exaggerated ways. While this is a trend with many of his works, there are exceptions. Some of his pieces are simply for fun. Others are more serious.

I find Banksy's work to be inspirational primarily because his art is dedicated to its content and purpose. His street work, while documented by film and photo, cannot be sold. It exists only to be seen by the public and elicit a reaction. Due to the satirical nature of his works, the reaction they often elicit forces the viewer to consider recent political events or lifestyles in a new perspective. To this extent, Banksy's dedication to content and message over profit is truly inspirational.

Artist 19: Akira Toriyama

Akira Toriyama is a Japanese character designer, writer, and Manga artist. Most known for his critically acclaimed Dragon Ball series of 42 volumes, Toriyama has been active in Manga business since 1979. Additionally, he has consistently illustrated the character designs for SquareEnix's premiere Role playing game franchise, Dragonquest. Toriyama's work is typically characterized by heavy contours, bright colors, linear texture, and angular figures.

Toriyama's art has profoundly influenced me since childhood. When I was ten, I would frequently emulate his style by portraying his characteristic  figures in over-the-top action scenes. Without a doubt, I've always been drawn to his work. His renditions are unique, edgy, and consistent throughout. To this extent, Toriyama's art is unmistakably easy to recognize and remarkably stands out from the standard of contemporary anime and manga art. Along with Yoshitaka Amano, Akira Toriyama is a japanese commercial art icon.

His short biography may be found here.

Artist 18: Scott eaton

Scott Eaton is a contemporary commercial artist and anatomy consultant from the UK. His work, which is primarily digital, has been featured in productions by Pixar, LucasFilm, Sony, Microsoft Game Studios, Ubisoft, The Mill, and Disney. Similar to his employers, Eaton's body of work is incredibly diverse. However, one quality that continually takes precedence in his art is his dedication to integrating "classical" anatomy with contemporary digital tools to create new yet familiar pieces of digital sculpture. Additionally, he uses this refined method in order to instruct his "Anatomy for Artists" course.

I find his work inspiring on the grounds that he accomplishes much of what I aim to do with my own work. To explicate, Scott Eaton takes an existing visual aesthetic, the foundation of western art specifically, and adapts it to contemporary art to make something new. In a similar manner, I want to take classical subject matter and mythology, fuse it with modern philosophical ideas, and adapt it to a new visual aesthetic. Eaton's work is a prominent influence for my art.

His website may be found here.