James Rosenquist has been one of my favorite artists since I discovered him in Art 2 Freshman year. The style and mark he uses to create his large, colorful, realistic paintings is something I attempted to emulate but could never achieve. I wanted to write about him for this awareness post because I saw one of his large paintings in person at the MoMA in New York. Rosenquist began painting billboards but stopped after one of his friends died after falling off the scaffolding. He then applied his sign painting skills to his other realistic paintings and continued on from there. His work exemplifies the beginning of the pop art movement. He juxtaposes the imagery of his paintings to represent themes of events like the war. I like his work because he paints realistically but the style in which he paints realistically is unique to him. I also admire the amount of detail he can get on such a large scale. Part of what is so captivating about his work is his use of color (which I am always so fond of). My favorite thing that he paints is spaghetti.
Ed Clark is an African-American abstract expressionist painter. He was one of the first artists to play with shaped canvases in the 1950s. Two important features of his work besides his shaped canvases are his use of color and large brushstrokes. He pioneered using techniques such as a push broom and working on paper with dry pigment. I saw his work in the MoMA. I’m always drawn to abstract expressionist pieces because of the color and the feel of the paintings, however when I saw Clark’s piece up close I noticed how beautiful his surface was. He achieved smooth passages with color with a large paintbrush but also had thicker splotches of paint from splattering or not smoothing out the color entirely. It’s clear that he would sometimes put down more than one color at once so that they blended together when applied with a brush. I like how he works on a tan/raw canvas instead of a primed white one. This neutral background allows the colors to appear brighter and allows for the application of visible white paint. The large scale of his paintings allows for more freedom with his mark. His paintings inspire me to go back to abstract acrylic paintings.
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AuthorGrace Barron Archives
June 2018
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