CHUCK CLOSE

Chuck Close is an American portrait artist who was born in Monroe, Washington in 1940. By the age of four, Close knew he wanted to be an artist. At age eleven, Close's father died and his family lost their home. Art was Close's defense against manic depression. Close attended the University of Washington, Seattle and graduated in 1962 with his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. In 1964, Close moved to the East coast and enrolled in Yale University's masters program for figurative art. After graduating, Close achieved fame for his larger than life Hyperrealist portraits. In 1988, Close was rendered quadriplegic because of a spinal artery collapse, but this did not end his career. Close changed his process to accommodate his handicap and has continued to produce portraits that are impressively realistic. Close continues to live and work in New York.

Bob, Chuck Close, Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 108 x 84 ”, 1969-70.

Close's pieces have been portraits since his college years in the 1960's because they are what interest him. Close takes photographs of himself and people in his life and works from the photo to generate a larger than life depiction of them. Close then lays out the composition as a grid on a canvas. I have always been against using a grid because it allows for less chance of an awesome error, but I have never considered myself to be a strict realist and I have never worked in a very large format. Close says, “ My work has always been driven by self-imposed limitations.” I need to severely limit myself in order to achieve successful works.

Mark, Chuck Close, Acrylic on Canvas, 108 x 84 ”, 1978-79.

Close is the most prominent portrait painter of the second half of the twentieth century. I eventually want to work large scale the way that close does but not in Hyperrealism. After looking at Close's works, I know how I want to produce my series of paintings for my Honor's Research Grant. Whether or not this will carry over into my series for Senior Seminar, I am unsure. I have never had a concrete painting process because I have only painted for a year now. However, I am currently devising a set of rules I will follow to complete a series of six self-portraits. I will stay in a bare white walled room without sleeping until the series of six paintings are done. I will not begin a new painting until I feel comfortable with the first one being complete. I will clean and restart my palette between each painting. I need strict discipline to shape a dedication to painting and process that I have yet to contrive.

Self-Portrait, Chuck Close, Acrylic on Canvas, 108 x 84 ”, 2002-03. 

PETER DREHER

Peter Dreher is a German realist painter born in Mannheim, Germany in 1935. At an early age, Dreher desired to be an artist and began drawing. Later he moved to painting as a freedom from the turmoil in his homeland and household during World War II. Dreher was formally trained as an artist at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe.

                                            

Tag um Tag Guter Tag #1364, Peter Dreher, Oil on Canvas, 8 x 10 ”, 1997

Dreher's paintings have consistently been still lifes of common objects. Dreher's process is cathartic and spiritual because he strives to paint the unfamiliar in the familiar through realism. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Dreher paints to paint. Dreher's most epic piece, Tag um Tag guter Tag is a series of paintings of more than 4,000 paintings of the same simple water glass. He has painted the same glass every day since 1974. Through this series Dreher challenges himself to paint objectively and his viewers to see objectively. Dreher is heavily influenced by Zen Buddhism.

Tag um Tag Guter Tag II #1946, Peter Dreher, Oil on Canvas, 8 x 10 ”, 2006

I was not initially fascinated by Dreher's works. I thought they were good, but far from my style and interest. After researching Dreher and better understanding his ideology of painting and the themes of his work, I am fascinated by he and his art. I relate to his feelings on painting. Dreher describes an addiction to spread paint across a surface to explore something. I feel a similar tension between myself and the act of painting. The decision to paint does not always come as a choice. I need a strict process and schedule to add to my work to make it successful and to transform my urge into a sanctum.

Tag um Tag Guter Tag #2016, Peter Dreher, Oil on Canvas, 8 x 10 ”, 1997

ANSELM KIEFER

Anselm Kiefer is a German painter, sculptor, and photographer. He was born in 1945 in Donaueschingen, Germany. Since early in Kiefer's childhood, he wanted to be an artist. Kiefer attended the art academies in Freiburg and Dusseldorf Germany. In school he studied under Peter Dreher, and then Jospeh Beuys. Kiefer has always had a focus on German history and the Third Reich. Kiefer is renowned for his paintings, but he began his career as a photographer. His first photograph series consisted of pictures of himself around Europe signaling the Nazi salute.

Bohemia Lies by the Sea, Anselm Kiefer, Oil, emulsion, shellac, charcoal, and powdered paint on burlap, 75 1/4 x 221 ”, 1996

Kiefer's paintings often revolve around a theme of Germany's abandoned past and the somber and macabre leftovers of the Third Reich. Later in his career, during the late eighties, Kiefer incorporated mythology, existentialism, and psychoanalytic themes into his paintings. Many of Kiefer's paintings reveal to us the epitome of Western tendencies in regards to setting. He reaches into and is blessed with access to a collective memory of ideas and histories. Kiefer's paintings are grandiose in scale, process, and depth.

I love his pieces with a one-point perspective composition. There is enormous anxiety within such pieces because when looking down a field of parallel lines that touch at the horizon, there is an innate sense of future of an impending arrival. What generates anxiety more than an assumed future?

Velimir Chlebnikov, Anselm Kiefer, Oil, emulsion and acrylic on canvas with mixed media, 12 x (74 13/16 x 110 ¼ ”, 2004

Immediately after seeing Kiefer's paintings, I was fascinated by his use of ordinary found materials encrusted in paint to create thick and penetrating impasto. His paintings depict a nature destroyed. Landscapes have not intrigued me the way in which people and portraits do. However, I seek to produce portraits that show an ego destroyed, an organic identity revealed, and conscious creation drowned out by the echo of destruction.

Aperiatur Terra et Germinet Salvatorem, Anselm Kiefer, Oil, acrylic, emulsion and shellac on canvas, 110 1/4 x 299 3/16 ”, 2005-2006

MARLENE DUMAS

Marlene Dumas is a South African contemporary painter. She was born in 1953 in Kuilsrivier, South Africa. In 1975, she completed her Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Cape Town. Dumas was heavily inspired by the work of photographer, Diane Arbus. She then moved to the Amsterdam in 1976 where she studied at the Institute de Ateliers on a scholarship. Her first solo exhibition was in 1983. She now lives and works in Amsterdam.

Jule-die Vrou, Marlene Dumas, Oil on Canvas, 49 x 41 ”, 1985

Dumas's early works are primarily collage. However, in 1984, she began painting the human figure and portraits. She uses the figures in her works as forms that evaluate society's conceptions of identity, sexuality, and race through the lens of current issues, personal experience, and art history. Like many of her contemporaries she works from photographs she has taken or found. The painting Jule-die Vrou was part of her 1985 exhibition, The Eyes of the Night Creatures. The show featured portrait paintings Dumas did hoping to invoke empathy for her subjects from her audience.

Naomi, Marlene Dumas, Oil on Canvas, 59 x 43 ”, 1995

Like Dumas, I am concerned with human identity and what motives/factors formulate one's private and public persona. It is interesting to know that every face is capable of expressing emotions drastically different from their typical. Do we get stuck in a feeling because we have so rigidly defined ourselves that we even have a default feeling. Painting from life is conducive to capturing a true feeling because time and lack of communication allow the subjects walls of expression become transparent. If I decide to work from photographs that I take, then I would like to have my subjects pose for a long duration and wait until their default emotion fades before I capture them in a moment. 

 Jen, Marlene Dumas, Oil on canvas, 43 3/8 x 51 ¼ ", 2005

LUCIAN FREUD

Lucian Freud was born in 1922 in Berlin, Germany. He was a figurative painter working primarily in realism. He is considered to be one of the greatest modern figural painters. In 1933, his family relocated from Berlin to London. When Freud was seventeen, he had began publishing his drawings in magazines such as the Horizon and becoming active within the avant-garde and homosexual communities of London. In 1939, Freud began his formal art training at the Central School of Art, the east Anglian School of Painting, and later Goldsmiths' College. Freud had his first solo exhibition in 1944. He remained a resident of London for the duration of his career and became a leading figure of the group of artists known as the School of London. Freud consistently worked as a painter and draughtsman for over forty years until 2011 when he passed away.

Reflection (Self-Portrait), Lucian Freud, Oil on Canvas, 22 x 20 ”, 1985

It was in the 1940's that Freud became serious about drawing portraits. He repeatedly painted his first and second wives. Early in Freud's painting career, he explored the human existential crisis through portraiture. By the early 1950's it was apparent that Freud had drifted from the problem of expression to the problem of creating the flawless illusion of reality. All of his paintings maintained a desaturated palette. Freud's focus was obsessive. In 1966, he found fascination in female nude bodies, then in 1977 he shifted his artistic obsession to the male nude body. It was in his female nude period that Freud had his mother and daughter sit nude for him. Many of Freud's models were close with him.

David Hockney, Lucian Freud, Oil on Canvas, 16 x 12 ¼ ", 2002

Freud is one of the most influential artists of my art. After looking at his work and seeing his paintings in museums, I better understand the importance of value and color for accurately describing the human body and form. His subtle use of color is masterful and yields a fluid composition. His portraits are typically of morbid faces and macabre figures. Allusions to Freud's style have subconsciously become present in my own paintings. I have not adopted a process similar to Freud's. He only painted from live subjects and dedicated massive amounts of time to each piece thus making his works more observational than experiential. I would like my process to be far quicker than his own. I do take preference of live models than images though. With my portraits, I do not seek to convey one emotion. Instead, I want to present facial expressions that suggest an infinite possibility of feeling because regardless of what we feel and are capable of feeling, we remain bound to our body and identity.

Benefit Supervisor Sleeping, Lucian Freud, Oil on Canvas, 59 5/8 x 86¼ ”, 1995

JOHN CURRIN

John Currin is a contemporary figural painter. He was born in 1962 in Boulder, Colorado. In an interview, Currin said “I decided to be an artist when I was eleven or twelve because that's what I was good at and it is where my heart lies. You're not as in control of what you ought to do as you think.” Currin took art lessons from his violin teacher's husband. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University and then earned his Master of Fine Art degree from Yale University in 1986. He now lives and works in New York City.

Shakespeare Actress, John Currin, Oil on Canvas, 48 x 44 ”, 1991

Currin says his paintings begin as a vaguely aesthetic idea. Otherwise, Currin does not have a universal method for generating his works. He likes to have subjects energetically extending out of the picture plane, like in sports and pornography. His subject matter primarily focuses on the female body and face. He saves mounds of images from newspapers, magazines, and videos to reference along with the mirror, models, and his wife. For example, his painting The Hobo was inspired by an old English engraving. His paintings are elegant and masterful in their craft and are often satirical depictions of conventions of beauty and contain awkward proportions reminiscent of mannerism. Themes present in his work are libertines, socialism, post-war Europe, and the “Bombastic burlesque of European life. Currin's paintings are undoubtedly influenced by Renaissance artists, but he also draws influence from Willem de Kooning, Paul Outerbridge, Eadward Muybridge, American movies, illustration, advertising, and Danish pornography.

Bea Arthur Naked, John Currin, Oil on Canvas, 38.2 x 32 ”, 1991

I am more intrigued by Currin's compositional layouts and craftsmanship than I am by his subject matter. I mostly seek to reference Currin's portraits and not his figural narratives. His portraits with a flat background are eloquent, penetrating, and achieve more universal human themes than his narratives. If I decide to solely do portraiture, I may use a flat background similar to Currin's in Shakespeare Actress and Bea Arthur Naked. His well blended painting style does not adhere to the progression of my work. My recent portraits are verging more on the style of Lucian Freud's works.

Skinny Woman, John Currin, Oil on Canvas, 50 x 38 ”, 1992

STAN BRAKHAGE

Stan Brakhage was an avant-garde filmmaker who worked in film from 1952 up until his death in 2003. Brakhage was born in 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri and worked as a live radio and recording soprano throughout his childhood. He entered Dartmouth College but dropped out as a freshman to pursue his interest in film. Two years later he enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute where he met many beat generation poets such as Robert, Duncan, Robert Creely, Kenneth Rexroth and Louis Zukofsky who would influence Brakhage's ideology. In 1954, Brakhage relocated to New York City where became acquainted with John Cage, Edgard Varese, Maya Deren, Jonas Mekas, and others. In 1955, Brakhage was commissioned by artist Joseph Cornell to make the film Wonder Ring. After watching this film, it is noticeably the predecessor of his style present in later films. The camera was an extension of Brakhage's eye. He recorded phrases of his experience to present a feeling as it develops in time. In 1964, his 16mm camera was stolen and resulted in a five year period focused on 8mm works.

The Wonder Ring, Stan Brakhage, 6 minutes, 1955

Many of Brackage's films focus on the loss of innocent and imaginative vision in humans as they age in a society. Other themes in his film are sexuality and mortality. Brakhage was a man on a progressive journey to abandon the material connection the brain makes with the eye. In his book Metaphors on Vision, Brakhage writes “Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective, an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which does not respond to the name of everything but which must know each object encountered in life through an adventure of perception.” Brakhage was an innovator of process. In his films such as Dante Quartet, Water for Maya, and Love Song, Brakhage would paint on a reel of film and sometimes use multiple exposures to give the span of the film's length continuity when projected.

Dante Quartet, Stan Brakhage, 6 Min, 1987

Brakhage is considered to be an artist who created art for art's sake. His ideas, process, and themes are of great inspiration to me. Brakhage is a unique artist because of his unrefined eye. He used color, light, and an emulation of the eye's motion and saccades through a camera lens to give a raw aesthetic. I anticipate exploring the medium of film, but regardless of my medium his mode of storytelling and ideas on vision will influence my process and product. For my senior seminar exhibit I am leaning away from the idea of formal painting and more towards mixed media and projection art to create my body of work.

Desistfilm, Stan Brakhage, 6 minutes, 1954