Andy Goldsworty

Andy Goldsworthy is one of my all-time favorite artists. A British sculptor and photographer, Goldsworthy defines my idea of environmental art. All his artwork relies on the manipulation of found natural objects. It is simultaneously minimal, complex, profound, and impermanent.

Goldsworthy's ability to manipulate nature and turn it into gorgeous works of art is incredible. His choice to then leave these works to the whims of the elements and observe how they change is truly awe-inspiring.

Goldsworthy has a unique vision which allows him to mimic elements he sees in nature with different elements, such as the above image using sticks to mimic the ripples in water, or rearranging various colored leaves to create a flawless color gradient.

Jun Kaneko

Jun Kaneko is a Japanese-born American sculptor currently working and living in Omaha, NE. While he works in many different mediums, including glass, painting, illustration, and operatic set design, Kaneko is best know for his massive ceramic sculpture, which can range in size from 5 to 13 feet in height.

Over the past several year, Kaneko's work has become a major influence on my own artwork, which can be seen in the ceramic forms I enjoy creating (although I lack the facilities to create works on the scale that he is capable of).

Kaneko's work is extremely minimal, focusing on simple forms called "dangos" (the japanese word for "dumpling") and colorful surface decorations. He essentially turns these massive forms into dramatic 3D canvases.

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh, the Dutch post-impressionist, is one of the most well known painters of all time. I won’t go into his history, since it is commonly known amongst most people who are familiar with his work. He was a master at capturing light and his distinctive use of heavy brush strokes to capture color and movement make his work instantly identifiable.
Throughout his artistic career, Van Gogh did many self-portraits. These have become some of his most well known paintings. It is especially interesting to see the evolution of the artist, physically and stylistically through his self portraits. I have always been a huge fan of Van Gogh’s work, especially his self-portraits, which always appear to be so emotional and raw, never glamorized or idealized.

I have always admired Van Gogh’s desire and ability to capture the moment in his paintings with quick heavy brushstrokes, and his grasp of the use of light in his work. The impressionists and post-impressionists have long played a significant role in inspiring my own work. Since I started working on my own self-portait, I have been told by several people that it reminds them of Van Gogh’s self-portraits. While this is unintentional, I am flattered to be compared to such an incredibly talented artist. I may attempt to stylize my own portrait to mimic those of the great master.

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo. Early twentieth century Mexican painter, wife of renowned fresco painter Diego Rivera, and possibly the most famous uni-brow of all time. Most of Kahlo’s work consists of self-portraits which are often dominated by the pain that she constantly experienced due a bus accident that occurred when she was a teenager (resulting in numerous broken bones, including her spine, and severe damage to her reproductive organs).

Often described as folk art, a significant portion of Kahlo’s work deals with her injuries, her damaged body, and her inability to reproduce. One could argue that she channeled that inability to reproduce children into her extremely prolific production of art. Often bedridden and unable to move around, painting was her only outlet, and she would often paint in bed. Her work varies from somewhat stylized, to near-photo realistic.

I’m always intrigued by Kahlo’s work because it is so personal. She became so focused on the terrible luck she had in life and the difficulties she faced living with such a damaged body. I’ve always found it extremely difficult to focus on myself in my art, most likely because I am so self-conscious and introverted. Kahlo’s work serves as an excellent example of how one can use their art to explore themselves, and help deal with difficult life issues in a constructive way.

Cy Twombly

Cy Twombly is an American contemporary artist whose work is mostly made up of mixed-media abstract, non-objective pieces. His work is said to blur the lines between painting and drawing. He operates under the idea that each line or mark in a work is it’s own subject, not the representation of something else. I haven’t been a huge fan of Twombly’s work, but I do take particular interest in his “scribble” paintings.

These works consist of dark backgrounds with layer after layer of scribbles in the style of unintelligible cursive writing. I find that these paintings have a nuance of color, as well as a quality of depth and texture that is something I often try to achieve in my own work.

As I said before, I was never a huge fan of Twombly’s work, but it’s starting to grow on me. It’s been several years since I last saw any of his work in person, and I feel like I’m gaining a new understanding and better appreciation of his work. Perhaps it’s time to make another trip to Houston to check out the Menil’s collection of his work again.

Ross Bleckner

Ross Bleckner is an American contemporary artist. His art is mostly non-objective, although birds play a significant role in many of his works. His work has been said to deal with change, loss, and memory, and often deals with issues concerning AIDS. Until recently, I had never heard of Bleckner, but having looked into his work I am truly impressed with what I’ve seen.

Bleckner’s non-objective work has an ethereal quality that imbues it with a sense of mystery and wonder. His use of spots of color that often bleed into the surrounding fields of color remind me of the interactions of different ceramic glazes with one another, something that combines my love of abstraction with my love of ceramics.

I think another reason that Bleckner’s work appeals to me so much because it reminds me a lot of the work of one of my greatest artistic influences: my mother.

Arthur Dove

Arthur Dove, and American painter, was an early modernist, and one of the first abstract expressionists. Dove helped pioneer the abstract movement, and is a major influence in a lot of my work.

Dove’s use of transitioning color and blending give many of his works a soft flowing quality that shows a prime example of his ability to capture the essence of a subject through it’s movement. His work takes everyday objects and settings and breaks them down to their most fundamental forms and colors, giving the viewer a fresh perspective on something that might otherwise be banal.

I often strive in my own work to capture such an essence of subject. Dove is a perfect example of an artist who’s goal was to see the world around him and show everyone else his own unique way of looking at it.

Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko, a Russian-born American painter, is another one of my favorite artists and a major influence on my own work. He also serves as another one of my excuses to make a regular pilgrimage to Houston to visit the Rothko Chapel. Though widely considered and abstract expressionist, he vehemently resisted being placed in the category, and often referred to his work as “mythomorphic” abstraction.

Rothko desired to take painting to the next step beyond abstraction to a strict interpretation of ideas, rather than subject. As he said in a manifesto written by himself and Adolph Gottlieb, in response to a review of their work in the New York Times:

We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.

Rothko’s work is typified by large canvases with large fields of color, sometimes contrasting and complimentary, sometimes analogous, sometime monochromatic. Rothko’s use of color has played a major role in influencing my own work, giving me the encouragement and confidence to be unafraid of color, and to use it as much as a mode of expression as the form of my subject matter.

Steven Assael

Steven Assael is an American painter known for his incredible grasp and execution of the human figure. I’m focusing on his drawings here because I was completely blown away by them. Assael demonstrates a mastery of the human figure that I could only dream of accomplishing, and his ability to capture light and shadow is amazing.

I’ve never been very interested in figurative artwork or drawing, but Assael’s work has given me a newfound appreciation of the genre. I hope to incorporate some of this new found inspiration into my own work in the future, although when I will have the time to dedicate to such an endeavor remains to be seen.

I don’t now what else I can say about this work other than the fact that I am totally amazed. I”l let the pictures do the talking for me.