My name is Helen and I am a 26 year old aspiring artist from Sunderland. I am drawn mainly towards Abstract Expressionism, and Surrealism. I would say my own work practice draw more so towards the Abstract Expressionism painting movement, though I do enjoy creating sculptures and life drawing. Within this blog I will write about and display my own artwork, along with artists who I like and am inspired by.
Recent Exhibition Visits
As part of my degree course, I am required to visit galleries and exhibitions of artists. I am a frequent of galleries regardless and am interested in of artists perceptions and views, along with their techniques and talents. However, due to the pandemic of Covid-19, I have found it increasing difficult to do so, therefore I looked into virtual exhibitions, in which I have compiled some summaries and reviews of my experiences.
Boca Museum
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Eye to i: self portraits
(71) Eye to I: Self Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery - YouTube
Mar 24, 2020 - Sep 20, 2020
Eye to I: Self Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery
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María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Untitled from the series When I am not Here, Estoy alla, 1996.
Though the exhibit I watched was very short, I found the insights of the information from the artwork quite fascinating. Seeing a glimpse of the variety of self-portraits was inspiring and helped me adapt my knowledge to take into practice within my own work. The exhibit showed a collection of self-portraits from a selection of artists including Maria Magdalena Campos-pons, Alice Neel and James Porter.
One of the most interesting pieces I found in the exhibition was that of Alice Neel, a self-portrait she created by the age of 80 in 1975, taking a full 5 years to complete. I like the idea she channeled of body positivity and acceptance, and how she challenged the stereotypes of body image at the time. I find it interesting that despite the changes and adaptions we have made to the stereotypical "perfect body" it is something that isn't nor hasn't been a set-in-stone form. When thinking further about body-positivity, it seems it is something we as a human race are always circling around and are never happy with. I feel that Neel wanted to express that it doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, that you are beautiful and should feel comfortable in your own skin.
Though I did enjoy what I was able to view through the online video, I wish that there was more to see for a longer amount of time. I do truly believe that if I was able to be at the exhibition in person, I would be able to further my findings and be able to see the textures, brushstrokes and details that I was unable to see through this small video.
Tate Modern
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Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol Marilyn Diptych 1962 Tate Purchased 1980
The exhibitions purpose was to strip down Warhol, look at what things lead to his creations and look further into his three main points of view in his art: immigration, identity and death and religion. What I find interesting at this exhibition, is that you can really see Warhol's variety in art styles and not just his stereotypically known soup tins or vibrantly coloured repetition paintings.
The first piece cited in the exhibition is of the documents Warhol and his family had when moving from Pittsburg to the U.S.A. I agree with what is stated in the exhibition video about how when you then relook at Statue of Liberty (Fabis) 1986 you immediately connect it back to those documents and the personal link to his immigration.
His drawings expressing his identity as a gay man, I particularly fond of, due to the minimalistic curves,, they look ahead of their time.
It's interesting to find out how the way he moved in the art world, mimicked his lifestyle. To me, it appears quite dramatic, in the sense that Warhol went from a poor background, to being extremely popular and successful once his became safe in himself once moving to New York, and shifting with simple and calming drawings to large loud pop art pieces.
I like how the exhibition not only shows his paintings, but also his work in the film and music industries. It really expresses just how much talent Warhol had. He never shyed away from showing vulnerabilty in his works, particularly his later works, which is something I admire in artists. Andy Warhol, Artist, New York, 20th august 1969 presented this very well.
I noticed how in Warhol's drag queen paintings his really combines vulnerabilty with the vivid colours, creating a positive, celebrated look to sexual and self-identity, something which wasn't very well distributed at the time. This again linking back to his earlier works of his identity within his sexuality and his identity as an immigrant. The brush strokes and movements in these paintings, make it feel as though the figures are moving, as if your right in the middle of a show, which is very captivating.
I felt that Tate Modern had depicted very well through a camera what I would actually see a and sense at an exhibition in person. This is something I didn't believe would work very well. The exhibition as a whole, gave me a larger insight to Andy Warhol as an artist, and a person. I enjoyed looking physically a little closer into his works and learning more about each piece shown.
Inspirational Artists
Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican Painter who identified as a Surrealist. She painted her work on her life mainly in the form of self-portraiture and focused on her relationship with her husband Diego Rivera, as well as her own physical and mental woes – such as her injury, miscarriage and depression.
From a young age, Kahlo had a series of unfortunate incidents such as polio and a bus accident that endured her to have multiple operations and permanent damage to her body. This led her to being severely depressed throughout the remainder of her life. She channeled these past-times into paintings that radiate the pain and hardship she was feeling.
Kahlo is a major inspiration to my work as, like Kahlo, I express my emotions and experiences throughout my work. I find that how she used her struggles to create beautiful yet startling pieces as an illumination of her life and shows us a perspective of how to see from other people's eyes.
Klaus Voormann
Klaus Voorman is a German artist, who is most famously known for creating the album covers for The Beatles ‘Revolver’. Voorman has received multiple awards for not just his creation of the album cover, but also for other works he has done.
Voorman made a deep bond with The Beatles, while in Hamburg and after the band split, collaborating with them together and individually, leading him to be known as ‘the other fifth Beatle’.
He works mainly within illustration and graphic design; however, I find his sketches from his time in Hamburg with The Beatles striking. His quick penmanship, combined with the realism in the images, really embraces the talent he possesses. Alike I, Voorman has a deep attention to detail, which is clearly shown through the ‘Revolver’ cover as the cover is completely covered with images of The Beatles, scaling from very large and simple, to miniscule and detailed.
Tracy Emin
Tracey Emin is a conceptual artist and an academician of The Royal Academy of Arts. In the past she has been known as an “enfant terrible” as her work can be quite a controversial, shocking and to the point. She rose to be a well-known artist through her piece “Everyone I’ve Ever Slept With” which consisted of a tent with the names of every person she had ever shared a bed with sewn onto the fabric. This piece I find fantastic, as it makes you think about your own perspective - how your own tent would look, and the automatic assumptions people would make about you.
Another one of Emin’s most famous pieces that find interesting is ‘My Bed’. From my first look at it, I immediately felt disgust and the items within it, however, was shortly realised the depth of it and the turmoil she was going through mentally at the time.
vincent van gogh
Vincent van Gogh was and is one of the most well-known and popular Post-impressionists in the world, creating of 2000 pieces of work during the decade he worked up until his death in 1890 by suicide. He created drawings, paintings, etchings and lithographs, the majority of which are situation in the Vincent van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, which was named in his honour. Although, he was under appreciated during his life, he has become one of the biggest and most influential artists in the world.
I personally love his work because you can feel the emotion of van Gogh in every brush stroke. His unique style of painting to me, is beautifully presented. I love how he was open to experimenting with styles and techniques despite his work "failing" repeated in the art world at the time. I do believe his mental state and relationships with people were a heavy influence on his work and his unfortunate death.
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono is an artist who works mainly in conceptual and performance art and her style is within the Fluxus movement. Ono is famously known for being the mistress/ second wife of the late John Lennon, whom she collaborated with numerous times in the late 1960s up until his untimely death in 1980. The met at one of her exhibitions, and one of her pieces attracted Lennon so much it lead to them becoming an item. A lot of her work focuses on world peace, most notably her and Lennons "bed-in" peace protest in 1969.
What I like about Ono’s work is that it doesn't look like stereotypical artwork but you can't not think about it and why she created it. Ono uses unusual or unconventional materials to unify her work, something which I find makes her stand out from the crowd.
Damien Hirst
Damien Hirst is a British artist who first came to light in the 1990’s. He caused controversy with his exhibition ‘Mother and Child’ which involved cows in tanks being severed in half. Though it was so controversial, it gained Hirst the recognition he desired and went on to win numerous awards including The Turner Prize in 1995.
Damien Hirst is an eccentric artist who is not afraid of incorporating brazen things to get a point across. Although some of the pieces come across quite morbid, my favourite works of Hirst's are the ones that tend to focus on death as they strike your emotions more abruptly, rather than giving off a more sympathetic woe like other artists portray.
I also like how in some of Hirst other works, he plays with colour and technique, for example on his print Andromeda, how the spot work looks like sunlight shining through leaves and blossom on a tree.
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler is an abstract painter from the second half of the twentieth century, who is a member of the second generation of post-war American Abstract painters. Her work mainly revolves around abstract expressionism and colour field painting. Frankethaler never saw a line as just a line, she saw it as a colour blocking another, a distinction between one side and another. Through her technique of soak-staining she created some fantastic pieces such as ‘Mountains and Sea’ which became a great influence on artists who specialised in colour field painting. She worked highly through six decades and regularly attended multiple international exhibits.
Her work is so abstract, that at first glance you may not see what Frankenthaler was perceiving. However, I find her work to be that of something you cannot just glance at, but glare until the image beneath the broadness but obvious.
Joyce Howell
Joyce Howell is an abstract expressionist painter whose work is mainly inspired by nature and sensory memories. She focuses on brush techniques and shades of colour to recreate her interactions and thoughts onto canvas. Howell likes to interpret things such as seasonal changes, texture and fixation on a subject and allows her hand to flow the paint brush on the canvas more naturally to get the concept she is searching for. I love how Howell does this technique as it expresses an soft and calming effect on the image and her colour palettes incorporate well with one another.
Though Joyce Howell is not as mainstream as some other abstract expressionists out there, she has featured in several exhibitions including The Wally Workman Gallery in Texas.
Joyce Howell’s work is inspiring to me as her techniques and themes are persistent throughout her collection and each piece I have seen, has immediately relaxed me through her unique brush strokes and flourishing hues.
