George CONDO

Joan of Arc, 2002
Oil on canvas
21" x 18"

Young Red Nude, 2002
Oil on canvas
60" x 48"

The ballerina
oil on canvas

 

Condo's work is, bizarre and explores the saturated world of portraiture in a beautifully original way.I found George Condo’s work after a long hard day in the library after feeling a bit deflated. I am inspired by how alters reality by changing and deforming ‘normal’ facial features and body features. I admire how his work is very detailed something  i intend on working on in my own work.

The vast majority of his so-called “portraits” are not portraits at all but images of imaginary people. His subject matter, which can be simultaneously hilarious and scarifying, puts a lot of people off, but many contemporary artists are in awe of his virtuoso paint handling
Read more HERE

In the morning

Mixed media painting oil pastels, acrylic on board

In the series of

My 30 by 30 cardboard drawings, this part of my project where I was in Limbo going right on track by basing the drawings on me myself and I

ADORNED

I cannot decide whether I like this drawing or not? I suppose it is part of the process bear with me.

No rest for the wicked

Recovering from a dreadful wet weekend, some bits were fun some not, I was looking forward to coming back to Manch only to discover my train was delayed and then after a brief wait it got cancelled someone had topped themselves a Milton Keynes I was just thinking couldn’t they have done it on a different day (cruel i know) but I have lot on my mind things to buy my trip to London stalled my work for a bit I came back to a messy flat and these.

Happy days huh

Saatchi Gallery part un

Over the weekend I went to London for a bit of inspiration. I wanted to go mainly to the Saatchi gallery partly because of the photographic exhibition called OUT OF FOCUS I was pleased that we were allowed to take pictures of pictures in the gallery (pun) This one was the at ground floor of the gallery.




Seeing these images on a computer screen does not do them any justice they are all printed out on 139.7 x 104.1 cm
The exhibition is on going till the 22nd of July I suggest a visit/trip to London.
These image are by Kate Grannan click HERE  see the rest of the images in the collection by Kate Grannan

Helene Amouzou

Helene Amouzou was born in 1969 in Togo. She now resides in Molenbeek (Brussels) and took classes in photography at the Academy of drawing and visual arts of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean. For over six years, she decided to
return the lens at it systematically.
As she says, she continually photography, mostly in the attic .... What are these incessant self-portraits ?
Body embedded in the walls, shadows, light, movement, metamorphoses, hanging garments, bags, pictures of Helen fortes.On might think are the work of Francesca Woodman ... But the reality is different and each story is different. Perhaps his approach is to try to find, to meet, to certify to exist, because Helen seeks his identity for years. Where does it really? The photos of Helena show a painful question.
 


As she says, she continually photography, mostly in the attic .... What are these incessant self-portraits ?
Body embedded in the walls, shadows, light, movement, metamorphoses, hanging garments, bags, pictures of Helen fortes.On might think are the work of Francesca Woodman ... But the reality is different and each story is different. Perhaps his approach is to try to find, to meet, to certify to exist, because Helen seeks his identity for years. Where does it really? The photos of Helena show a painful question.

Photoshop plus Drawing

I have started merging my drawings and photographs, i wanted to create drawn backgrounds'/ backdrops but failed so I have thought to use Photoshop create interesting illustrations. After looking at Frida Kahlo’s work, I have been inspired by her her portraits and the way she uses simple poses and complementing them with interesting backgrounds and sometimes (freaky) backgrounds.

Drawings today

I have started a terrible habit of hoping from drawing to drawing, These drawings are all based on me some a bit crude but I have to do it for my project.
I am going to try and finish these by tonight i will wish myself luck toddles.

Cardboard

So far for my project I have been focusing on me and making comparisons with normal people.
I have been working a lot in my sketchbook but I have started feeling daunted by the size and pages.
I have started using cardboard squares so I can carry them around in my handbag.
After finishing these hopefully I can use wood as I have its easy to paint

These are some of the drawings i have done so far. I am proud of them and it is liberating to work in such small scale again.

After the elephant dung: Chris Ofili

Chris Ofili: 'The studio is a laboratory, not a factory.' Photograph: Horace Ové
I may been biased on my thoughts on Chris Ofili, in one Contextual studies seminar I quote myself here , I said ‘I found his work offensive’ without having looked or seen his work. The reason for this was someone had told me he uses Elephant Dung to assimilate his feelings about Africa since he is originally from Nigeria.
After doing a lot of research my feelings towards his work have changed, mainly because I can relate to some of the things he said in this article HERE its a very long article but worth a read.
I find the concepts of his portraits very stimulating because there is a long story there, for my unit X I intend to go and see hi work at the Saatchi if he is still showing there (i will do some research)

Art's great nudes have gone skinny ( not my words)

Italian artist Anna Utopia Giordano has taken some great (and, to be honest, not so great) paintings of nudes from the past and reimagined what they would look like if their bodies conformed to what the 21st-century thinks of as an ideal of beauty. The results are revealing – and quite shocking in what they say about our modern attitudes to women's bodies.
Click on the link HERE to see the photoshoped images of of great paintings reimagined

Good to make

As part my part of my reflections I have been making sculptures using my features for stimulation. I am currently using store bought air dry clay to make these sculptures. I am now thinking of other methods i.e using a corn meal paste and allowing it to dry for a couple of days. I  also  want to improve the scale of these.
I was inspired by John Kirby’s exhibition LIVING DEAD at the WALKER ART GALLERY to make these. I find this process very liberating as it has allowed me (to draw by making). I enjoying moulding features and the feel of clay.

I do feel they look like a bit naive but making sculptures has allowed  me to loosen my hand when drawing, I no longer obsess about one drawing but just move on to the next page.

A taste of Africa

These images remind me of what growing up in Africa was like and how I probably dressed or what my my grandma would have like me to dress like I found these images  HERE
These images have allowed me to reflect on my national identity something that I always try and pursue but it is difficult.

Special collections visit

I visited special collections library looking for something or a book with book with black people, I was given this book by the librarian because he thought this is one of the the first books that viewed/represented  black people as human beings rather caricatures from Jim Crows idealism of ‘black folk’, this book was published in 1962
Even for me this book humanised black people but the author of this book was criticised for not being being black and his lack of understanding of black people, because the his portrayal was off the scale, and did not represent black people in America in the early 60s, it was  the around of The Civil Rights Movement. This book resonated with me because it showed people of my colour looking ‘normal’ and doing normal things (which we do).