 Spanish sculptor Isabel Miramontes makes amazing bronze sculptures based on the human body. Inspired by “poses and impressions,” Miramontes creates these broken up bronze figures and surreal shapes that create an overwhelming sense of movement. These pieces are meant to focus on a deeper visualization of the human body in relation to the state of mind, and as the artist puts they are essentially illustrating emotional despair in physical form. These sculptures are stunning and so creative, and I would love to be able to bring in some of this creativity into my own depiction of people, as I am trying to break away from simple drawings of people's faces.
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Guy Denning is an english contemporary artist and painter who primarily works in France. He is one of the founders of the neomodern group. Denning is a self-taught artist who both draws and paints. He is most known for his very bold abstract pieces focusing on the expressive brushstrokes. But what caught my eye the most was his pencil and charcoal drawings of faces. The first above on the left is so stunning and I adore the composition of the body and the open characteristic of the picture not being solid and fading out in certain parts. That is something I have briefly tried and did not really succeed but this has inspired me to maybe try again.
I worked much bigger for my home project in an attempt to push myself more. I went for a kind of yin and yang effect with these two figures supporting each other and their contrasting coloring in a black and white scale. I am very happy with how the dark haired figure turned out, particularly the face. However I think I struggled on shading the other figure with the black on already back board and as a result it does not pop at all. Overall I like this piece but I don't love it.
This exhibit was adorable and very amusing to see. It was literally bunch of different artists pieces that featured cats in some ways. I really love the one pictured above on the right, the composition and the mark really stood out to me. I also really like the unique positioning of the animal that is very cat-like and expressive, and is in many ways what I want to do with people in my own portraits.
 This Daily Mail article delves into the bewildering occurrence of artistic copyright violation - in which the violator was actually ISIS. Artist Brian McCarty is known for his photography depicting children reactions to war using dolls and figurines posing in an actual war setting. One of his pictures showed a Cinderella dolls with missiles about her head. McCarty was notified by a copyright organization that his image had been stolen and altered to be used as a recruitment image for ISIS. This is absolutely shocking to me, that via social media (such as Twitter in this case) quite literally anyone is able to take advantage of any image without the knowledge of who ever ha shared it.
This ties into the second journalistic article here, centering around the change in tide centered around Socialist Realism. The use of the photography in the first article essentially manipulated it into recruitment propaganda for its organization - similar in many way to the way that Socialist leaders of the Soviet Union in the mid 19th century would commission already known artists to paint idealistic paintings to persuade the minds of the workers. This in itself is a (slightly) more subtle form of propaganda for the movement of Socialist reign in the Soviet Union. The question about the revival of Social Realism and whether or no tit is tainted or it is actually a part of Russian history that must be commemorate and shown is an interesting one. At first I think that in the case of the ISIS advertisement on Twitter and who that would never go down as something to be commemorated in history as something artistic in any way. However, there are many differences between these two forms of propaganda. The first is the most obvious - the use of technology. Because of the easy access of social media websites, the artist McCarty was not commissioned for this work, rather stolen from. The difference between these two are also the form. While both are essentially advertisements, the Social Realism seen in the exhibition “Soviet Sport” depicts an entire social and political stage in across a country, and is also paired with incredible skill in painting- these paintings are often huge and are always of beautiful realistic skill. While I do not consider myself a fan of these forced commission works intended to benefit their rulers, I very much agree that these paintings demonstrate a huge part of Russian history as well as represent very well known artists and their skills. I think that Social realism deserves appreciation on an artistic and historic level, not praise for message of circumstance.
Davide Cambria uses a very loose yet intentional mark to craft incredibly alluring oil portraits. Many of them include elements missing, such as hairline, ears, ect. Because the blending is very loose the colors used (specifically on the skin) are critical to capture the life-like effect. The energy behind the mark and in the eyes and body language of the subjects are all elements I could only aspire to have in my own work. I seriously love everything about these paintings.
Elizabeth is a self taught artist and was born in 1960, born and raised in Thailand. Romhild's unique heritage has instilled her creativity with a distinct individuality. She originally began painting realistic portraits, later moving on to seascapes and landscapes. Now, she uses more bold female images, depicted very colorful and expressive ways. My favorite part about this work is the expression achieved in ways other than realism. While the figures are clearly not intended to look like perfect photographs, the wild color and boisterous mark add the overall emotion and message of the work.
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