Category: art

F. Scott Hess

 

F. Scott Hess, Unknown Title, Oil on Canvas, (Catch of the Day)

F. Scott Hess, “Light,” 2005, Oil on Canvas

Born in Baltimore, longtime Los Angeles artist F. Scott Hess attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria, and Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, earning a BSA from the University of Wisconsin in 1977. In 1979, Hess moved to Vienna, Austria, where he studied for five years with the Austrian painter Rudolf Hausner, who has been credited as the first psychoanalytical painter. Through his artistic teaching experience in Vienna, Hess gained greater exposure to techniques of old master style painting, which profoundly influenced his work.

F. Scott Hess  has been described as a “New Old Master”. His narrative portraiture blends realistic scenes of everyday life with symbolic and allegorical events, humor, eroticism, and voyeurism. He begins with drawings and careful diagramming on his canvases before adding traditional oil paint or egg tempera. Hess’s works are defined by his strong brushwork, careful attention to the luminosity of flesh, and ability to capture ethereal light.

Source: generouslycrazytiger

David Hockney

David Hockney, “Jungle Boy”, 1964, Etching and Aquatint Printed in Colors, Printed on Mould-Made Paper, Published by Associated American Artists

This etching is from a formative part of David Hockney’s life: the years from 1961 to 1964, That period spans part of his time at the Royal College of Art, where he was a student form 1959 to 1962; his first years as an independent London artist; and a period in which his printmaking focused entirely on etching. During this time, Hockney had his first visit to the United States, funded by an art prize for one of his prints. It was also during this period that Hockney created his renowned “A Rake’s Progress” series of etchings after his return to London.

David Hockney’s early print work are examples of his raw talent and ability to transform the artistic medium he works with. He began making prints as a student in 1961 because he could not afford paint supplies. He mastered the medium and made prints with abandon, using the medium to reflect upon his life as a young art student in London at that time, creating a portrait of the artist as a young man.

“I started doing graphic work in 1961 because I’d run out of money and I couldn’t buy any paint, and in the graphic department they gave you the materials for free. So I started etching, and the first I did was Myself and My Heroes. My heroes were Walt Whitman and Gandhi. There was a little quote from each of them, but for myself I couldn’t find anything – I hadn’t made any quotes – so it just said, ‘I am twenty-three years old and wear glasses,’ the only interesting thing I could think to say about myself.” -David Hockney, 1976

David Hockney

David Hockney, “Man In Shower in Beverly Hills”, 1964, Acrylic on Canvas, 166.4 x 166.4 cm

Hockney formed his first impressions of Los Angeles from books and magazines he read before he visited the city. While still in London in 1963, he painted an invented shower scene, “Domestic Scene, Los Angeles”, now in a private collection, which included an image of two men taken from the homoerotic American magazine ‘Physique Pictorial’.

When Hockney went to Los Angeles six months later, he was particularly fascinated by the use of water for irrigation and recreation in the semi-arid environment. He delighted in experimenting with various methods of depicting drops and sprays of water, attracted by the ‘idea of painting moving water in a very slow and careful manne. Hockney painted swimming pools and lawn sprinklers, but was equally intrigued by showers.

“Americans take showers all the time … For an artist the interest of showers is obvious: the whole body is always in view and in movement, usually gracefully, as the bather is caressing his own body. There is also a three-hundred-year tradition of the bather as a subject in painting. Beverly Hills houses seemed full of showers of all shapes and sizes … They all seemed to me to have elements of luxury.” – David Hockney

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei, “He Xie (River Crab)”, 2010, Porcelain

The installation “He Xie” consists of 3,200 porcelain crab sculptures. They were created after Chinese authorities ransacked and destroyed Weiwei’s studio in 2010. Following that event, a feast of real river crabs was hosted by Weiwei, who was unable to attend, due to his house arrest. The term “He Xie” is a homophone for “harmonious” in Chinese and has also become a term for internet censorship.

Kjell Nupen

Three Paintings by Kjell Nupen

Kjell Nupen was a Norwegian contemporary artist who had his professional breakthrough very early. He studied at the Statens Kunstakademi. Nupen experienced success early on, and at the age of just 19, his art was bought by Riksgalleriet, Nasjonalgalleriet and Norsk Kulturråd. His younger artistic years were coloured by radical political expressions influenced by the turbulent political times that existed in Europe.

During his time in Düsseldorf, Kjell Nupen embraced the idea, so present at the academy, that art should mean something. This has resulted in a few symbols he has immersed himself in over the years, such as: the boat (endless journey), car wrecks (nature morte), eagle in flight, tree trunks (homestead),  and the lighthouse (sentimental journey).

During the 1980s human figures were no longer prominent in Nupen’s work,  replaced by motifs from nature. Nupen’s references to Edvard Munch, Matisse, and Eadweard Muybridge can be seen in many of his paintings such as “Flygende over Vann”. Nupen was especially known for his use of the color blue.

The Paper Time Machine

Wolfgang Wild and Jordan Lloyd, “The Paper Time Machine”, 2017

“The Paper Time Machine” contains 130 historical photographs arranged chronologically, chosen and introduced by Wolfgang Wild, the creator and curator of the remarkable website. Each time-bending image chosen by Wolfgang have in turn been painstakingly restored and rendered in colour by Jordan Lloyd of Dynamichrome, a company that has taken the craft of colour reconstruction to a new level.

Each element in the monochrome images has been researched and colour checked for historical authenticity. As the layers of colour build up, the effect is disorientatingly real and the decades and centuries just fall away.

A preview of the art book “The Paper Time Machine: Coloring the Past” can be found at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Paper_Time_Machine/O5zUDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA2&printsec=frontcover

Reblogged with thanks to http://archatlas.net