One of my Favorites, Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh, Banksy, Chuck Close, Cai Guo-Qiang, all amazing artists, all innovative, creative, and damn well talented. These four artists are in the top spots for having created some of my most favorite pieces of art. But for this post, i am only to choose one. To somehow choose from Banksy's social statements and superhero like illusiveness, to Qiang's capture of raw movement in breathtaking explosive drawings.

For me this was an near impossible task. Though i have come up with the results. Vincent Van Gogh's classic, Starry Night.

This painting has always been a favorite of mine since i was really young. Van Gogh had created this piece while he was in the care of a psychiatric center in France.

What intrigues me most of this painting is that it was painted by memory during the day. The painting my be fairly inaccurate since Van Gogh had no reference but his own mind. But i believe that makes this painting remarkable. I gives us as viewers, a sense of what Van Gogh saw, a window into his mind if you will. Not to mention the gorgeous deep blues and glimpses of yellow and white that light up the night sky. Every aspect of this painting has always made me smile, making this painting an all time favorite of mine.

(image taken from www.paintingsite.net/famous-paintings-renaissance.html)

Plans for Creating My Artist Book

I'm an art student, so naturally i love art, but i also love explosions. Before this last year i never thought that those two very separate areas of my life could harmonize so well together. That was before i learned of Cai Guo-Qiang. Qiang is a Chinese artist that uses the medium of gunpowder and explosives to create amazing images on sheets of wood that singlehandily capture, in one point in time, the beauty, raw power and energy of an explosion.

Naturally i was enthralled by these immensely vivid drawings. I had been so impacted by his thoughts and his talent that i feel so pressed as to create my class artist book on Cai Guo-Qiang. He first came across the medium of gunpowder as a means of harvesting and accessing spontaneity. As well as a social confrontation to China's controlled suppressive traditional artistic style.

Qinag does an amazing job of capturing the single point in time at its most spontaneous. And portraying that moment with such elegance and grace, that one may almost the the action itself in motion across the page. I believe that aspect of Qiang's work is what hooked me. The fact that i can trace the path of the fire burnt wood sheet with my eyes, and see the sense of motion frozen in time is truly remarkable.

(images taken from dcdomain.org/blogger/dcdomain/2007/10/across-board-well-not-totally-less-is.php

and

www.pbs.org/art21/slideshow/popup.php?slide=341)

This piece is a 4.25 x 6 x 4.25 3Dimensional ceramic piece and painted with acrylics created by Ken Price.

This piece is very geometrically cut on the outside of the piece, and painted very neatly in dark gray and red

acrylic paint.

This ceramic at first did not catch my interest at all, but the more that I looked at it the more i started to like

it. For a piece that seemingly so simple there is so much to look at. Each angled cut on its outside creates a

different value In contrast to the side next to it. Each side is so precisely cut and so clean that, for me, creates

a sense of machine made accuracy rather than hand made precision. Which in my eyes makes the overall piece

far more impressive.

The craft is incredible and the overall aesthetic is very pleasing to the eye, even though at first glance I

thought I thought it was too ordinary.

P.S. Note the image shown is not the actual work I am talking about, but similar to the one I have talked about.

P.S., P.S. The piece above is also created by Ken Price.

(image taken from www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2008/11/ken-price-at-franklin-parrasch)

Ken Price Untitled Ceramic

Banksy Graffiti, South Bank London

I chose to write about a piece that was done by the graffiti artist Banksy in South Bank London. This piece is of an artist standing and painting at an easel. It is a stenciled aerosol piece sprayed in black paint on a wall in a public setting of South Bank London.

I have always been drawn to graffiti art and the medium of aerosol paint. But what so greatly draws me to this piece over all other graffiti art, is Banksy's use of implied line, and how he is able to create such an interesting image with only the use of positive and negative shape to create the form of the artist standing at an easel.

What also draws me to Banksy's work is his use of setting. As a street artist Banksy's setting is in public spaces, and his aim is at the public audience, to make them think or simply smile. He doesn't keep his art away from the view of anyone, but instead makes it accessable to everyone. Another thing I greatly admire about this artist is that he creates the work, not for recognition or reputation, but for arts sake. For the sake of making people slow down and think. I know if I were rushing from one point to another and came across an art piece done by Banksy, I would not be able to help but stop, and that image would keep in my mind stimulating my thoughts. He doesn't do it for the personal fame, in fact he tries his best for his identity not to be discovered, but for the audience and the love of the art.

(image taken from www.artofthestate.co.uk/banksy/banksy_stencil_graffiti.htm)