Mandy Budan

Mandy Budan grew up in Toronto and has lived in Canada all her life. Originally trained as a graphic designer, that background brings a unique sense of line and balance to her fine art work. She paints out of her home studio in Pickering.  Intrigued by the play of possibilities in taking apart the landscape and putting it back together as abstract form, she creates work that has a more realist feel from a distance and is distinctly abstract up close which I     think I can benefit from observing her techniques. From the rugged beauty of Lake Superior, to the quiet forests that can be found in and around Toronto, to the farms and fields of Kitchener and Stratford, Ontario is full of the kind of subject matter that Mandy delights in. Her use of colour blocked in to these surreal shapes works to create a much more animated landscape. She is able to break up the landscape into segmented lines whilest retaining even enhancing the tonal values and the depth of the view scape.  Inspired by Canadian icons like Tom Thomson and Lauren Harris as well as painters Anne Savage and Prudence Heward, Mandy is constantly striving for that perfect union of shape and colour that will result in a painting that both conveys the feel of a specific Canadian place and stands strong as a non-objective abstract.  Mandy has had several paintings accepted into local shows and recently her painting 'Towards Autumn' won Best of Show in the 10th Annual Pine Ridge Juried Art Show.

 

Vincent van Goh

Rankin

David Hockeney

Kara Walker


Kara Walker’s work is steeped in the subject of race. Her often exaggerated cut outs of facial features, body shapes, and costume use line to consciously identify the ethnicity of her subjects identity through assumption and comment on the way race is used to define us through visual stereotype. Walker's use of the silhouette is both an ironic and complex way to address these issues, since the paper Walker uses to cut out most of the images for her wall murals is black. This media eliminates the need for her to create skin tones and effectively renders all of her figures “black.” For these pieces the racial status assigned to her characters is visible through stereotype and caricature, more often than not exaggerated facial feature i.e big lips to inject humour and mock these stereotypical generalisations. For Walker, using the silhouette came from her thinking about what it means for groups of people to define themselves through images. This is a personal interest of the artist, who says that making artwork about race translates into intimate issues about identity and society. The


compositions scenes also convey mindsets about assumed racial behaviours, mainly explicit assumptions of black women being almost sole sucking and sexually crazed with a for gone substantial libido. walkers pieces are mostly intriguing due to the depth of contrast in her pieces and the message within the scenarios prevoking interpenetration. The focal point is based around role reversal and 1500's African american slavery, highlighting class and monopoly of power.


walker has inspired my personal work due to the fact that such simplicity brings to surface such complex politics and standings on race and society. Although personally I had not adopted the motive behind her work, neither had i put a message behind mine, i took on the technique of creating the silhouettes in an attempt to create a depth of colour in my final mural.

Martin Parr

This photo by Parr is a depiction of identity through iconic trademarks of society and era as a like are all of his pieces. The reason why I was drawn to this photo and chose to analyse it is because it has a strong message behind it. From the immediate offset u can identity that the image consists of a delicate china tea cup, tea inside it and a pattented surface mat. Clearly this image serves time capsule for 19..0's Britain and carries with it much character. Judging by the bold striking colours of the red, white and blue of the image it seems almost a strong decision for the composition of the items to be these colours as they reflect back on the colours of the union jack.

William Eggleston

This is a photo, from the looks of the lens in the 1970’s. It appears it is taken from inside a diner apparent from the coca-cola crate and the painted lettering made out on the window ‘shrimp’. This image drew my attention not because of its physical composition but instead what it does as an image. It works almost as a time capsule, capturing that era and way of life in subtle ways. Weather on not the photographer was aiming to convey this message or arouse this reaction it does so effectively .Highlighting the technique of type on the display, the American muscle car and the pre developed coca-cola logo and the architecture behind the parking lot.

SI Scott

Si Scott is a graphic designer from the Uk who is originally from Leeds but has moved around the country quite a bit. Si regularly exhibits and lectures around the world, places such as Tokyo, Sydney, Toronto, Norway and New York amongst others. He creates distinctively quite innovative type, with extended serifs which bring his illustrations to life. His unique style of award winning work is a blend of hand crafted and hand drawn artwork that has gained him a large and prestigious client list.

Focusing in on his typography, his use of distinct black flowing lines against a white backdrop consequently draws your attention to detail. The free flowing shapes contained with the ridged alpha numeric font create a sense of containment yet convey a freedom of expression which hasn’t boundaries. The motion of his letter forms in some sense creates illusion and conjures awe in reaction.

Brands such as Nike, Addidas and Orange have employed Si to create illustrations for campaigns as his pieces are very striking and although different brands his style of working convey its very own message.

Throughout my experimentation i have shown my pencil and graphical transcripts in the style of Scott. Manipulating the embodiment and type form in order for it to stand free flowing and convey natural contours and forms which speak to us on look the visuals. I draw much inspiration from Scott as an artist primarily due to the fact that the work carries such flamboyance and highlights the artist’s creativity.

Frank Gerhy

Paul Halley

Andy Warhol

Micheal Roberts

David Dowton

Stinkfish

Stinkfish is street artist from Colombia and produces Street Art London town. Today he was painting this fantastic doorway over in East London. Street Art London caught up with him to take some shots as you can see below…

I personally admire the work of stinkfish because of the way the pieces capture you. The innovative and innate use of colours in the work, vibrant, colourful, the free flowing strokes from the central image which captures main features in a deep black works well giving contrast. The art work to me depicts a sense of freedom and prosperity, culture and beauty. Most stinkfish street has a basis of a real life photographed portrait; from this he uses the harmonic brushstrokes to depict features emotion and life. The designs tell a story almost and highlight many things one of which is identity. The swirling psychedelic designs remind us that sometimes love is an altered state.

I've drawn inspiration from Sinkfish in sense that I understand how the use of colour impacts on the images overall ability to provoke analytic thought and spur emotion. Building on these techniques i hope to incorporate such colour in my work along the line.

Richard Hamilton

'Just what is it that makes today's homes, so appealing?'

This collage by English artist Richard Hamilton was made in 1956, being the first pop art to achieve iconic status it is a very influential piece in art history. Pop art emerged in the mid 1950's in the USA. Pop art Changed tradition by asserting position that an artist may use images of mass-produced visual commodities from popular culture to produce their art works. I feel Hamilton was able to assert this acceptance in the art world of using images from popular culture at this time as it created an interesting theme and although being just images, placing them together in this way speaks out a much bigger picture throughout every detail even the outward view of the window people may overlook, a billboard poster to what looks like a Broadway musical or music event which was highly popular in the 1950's western culture. Pop art is a movement is an art movement of the twentieth century characterized by themes which this piece highlights and techniques drawn from popular mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. Hamilton capsulate all of these conventions through the compositions, emphasising your over analysis on the piece that stirs controversy and popping up questions with new answers is the fact that the title is a question in itself.

During the first stages of my idea development plan for our first project we were set the task of investigating selective objects that have meaning to us and interests us, so in order to spur up ideas i decided to create a collage composition similar to Hamilton’s to create interesting visuals and build-up of ideas. It was effective as I ended up using a large section of my collage trace in my final piece and i was able to source popular interesting culture on a double page spread which was ultimately Hamilton’s aim when produce this piece.

Michael Craig martin

Michael Craig Martin is attempting to communicate through conceptualism, minimal construction usually depicting everyday household objects drawing inspiration from dada (dadaism) an art movement exploring and encouraging anti-war politics. He also drew inspiration from Marcel Duchamp a surrealist artist who challenged conventional thought within art. His work is composed of black line drawings can be compared to the works of both Patrick Caulfield and Julian Opie. His work is coloured to convey a message through the style of pop art with vibrant primary colours filling in and/or highlighting areas of the piece which is covered with these collection of conventional items.

His works can be done on canvas with (acrylic) paint or with other methods, such as using black tape to make the lines. Quoted, "I've always wanted to make drawings that were absolutely style-less," says Craig-Martin. This to me seems accurate and I believe his has succeed in achieving that mood, feel and look to his work. Flat colours usual tend to draw attention but fail to display depth personality and story; the object has been simplified and filled with colours which are a far fetch from what you know the item to look like. However by standing both complementary and contrasting colours side by side it sets quite a segmented and linear look but at the same time free flowing and the thin black line connects every piece of the picture. As we know objects in the real life are not composed of out lines and lined detail but instead a blend of shades and shapes to obtain this form. What Michael Craig Martin has done is eradicated that from your thought when looking at his work and used an exaggerated use of colour to manipulated the subject.

Michael was born in Dublin in 1941; Michael Craig-Martin studied at Yale University School of Art and Architecture in the early 1960s, but has spent most of his working life in Great Britain. Since that time he has shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions both in Britain and internationally, including the definitive exhibition of British conceptual art, The New Art, at the Hayward Gallery (1972). The impact Michael has had on the world of art is obvious. From 1974 to 1988, Michael instructed art at Goldsmiths College, London. Michael returned to Goldsmiths College in 1993 as Millard Professor of Fine Art. Michael has a long and impressive list of accomplishments in the world of art: He has served as a Trustee at the Tate Gallery, has done installations for the Projects exhibition series at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1991) and the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1994), and has created major wallpainting installations at the Kunstverein Hannover (1998) and at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (1999). Michael represented Great Britain at the XXIV Bienal de São Paulo (Brazil) in 1998 due to his dedication and contributions to the artworld.

Micheal had dicided on becoming an artist from a very young age and it is due to his encounters in life that he was able to decided his career path so early on in life. Quoted,” I decided I wanted to be an artist very young - I was about 12 when I first saw reproductions of 'modern' art. For some reason I realized that art would always be elusive and ungraspable and I knew that that was for me. I met a 'real' artist, the Spanish artist Antonio Roda, when I was 14 and started drawing classes with him. I was very determined but full of self-doubt.”

I have used this artist in my own experimentation work in order to attempt to express moods and feelings of my personality. Through the selection of colours and composition of objects traced from my earlier collage I have made response to a simple but yet effective working style. I admire his pieces in how they draw inspiration from previous artists from several art movements cross referencing them into one style and creating his own.