Jim Nutt

Jim Nutt

Coursing, 1966, acrylic and collage on plexiglas

Trim, 2010, acrylic on linen

Jim Nutt is a founding member of the Chicago surrealist art movement known as Chicago Imagists, or Hairy Who. His pop culture influence is evident in his work. He often paints fantasy, characters, and political commentary.

In his portraits, he paints expectations of faces instead of actual faces.  His faces could be compared to that which a child would draw. He uses mixed media and collage. They could be classified as cartoon versions of people, kind of remind me of Ren and Stimpy. His flat areas of color bring to mind digital versions of paintings.

The shapes of his figures could be compared to John Currin.

These two paintings have over a 40 year span but elements of distortion and strange shapes remain constant.

Lorraine Shemesh

Lorraine Shemesh

Bubbles, 1990, oil on canvas

Spots, 2012, oil on canvas

Lorraine Shemesh is a hyper-realist painter. She lists Edward Hopper, athletic figures, dancers, Abstract Expressionism, and Neo-Impressionism as her influences.

Themes include unconventional cityscapes, figures, interiors, repetition, and water.

Her underwater scenes are super good - highly saturated colors with water distortion. Her earlier works are humorous and contemplative.

Tal R.

Tal R.

Victory Over the Sun, 2000, oil on canvas

Sisters of Kolbojnik, 2002, oil on canvas

Tal R. represents what is at front and back of the mind in conjunction with the bodily and the emotional. He shows melancholy and ecstatic states of transformation. He describes painting as a lunchbox. Subject matter includes imaginary pastoral scenes, primitivism, and patterns to convey a generosity of spirit and joy!

Colors are off, broken, or dense. Paintings exhibit spatial realization through a dynamic horizontal field. He uses collage, pencil, and oil in a variety of techniques (splatter, drip, brushstrokes, etc.)

Uses images from pop culture, and his cultural works are narrative.

Pia Fries

Pia Fries

Pia Fries' work results from a conceptual and aesthetic wrestling match with Modernist painting.

She uses palette knives, spatulas, brushes, syringes and other instruments in a variety of applications on heavily primed wood panel. Her use of color is daring and inventive. She creates visual music with graceful swooshes, ethereal spills, muscular swipes, and awkward smears.

Stylistically, Fries blurs the line between painting and sculpture. Conceptually, she is interested in process painting and painting as a verb.

Karin Davie

Karin Davie

In Out In Out #5 and #6 (diptych), 1992, oil on canvas

Slip-Up, 1998, oil on canvas

Karin Davie is known for her Modernist striped and looping hyperbolic abstractions. Her process can be viewed in context with painting as performance.

Her paintings are constructed from repetitive physical movements. She works in large scale with bright colors.  Line and color are strongly emphasized.

She has been linked to/compared to Pop art, Op art, and Abstract Expressionism.

Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst

Requiem, White Roses, and Butterflies, 2008

spin painting, 1995

Damien Hirst is internationally renowned for his sculptural works but also creates well-known paintings! He shows immense influence of Francis Bacon. His first painting show received one of the worst critical responses ever. It was called "shockingly bad" and "first year art student".

He does spot paintings, which are just colored spots on walls, boards, and canvas. Also spin paintings, which are just SPIN ART that you can buy at Michaels. These can both be categorized as non-representational.

In his other works, he uses dark colors and deep shadows, referencing the popular themes of death and theatricality.

Jane Callister

Jane Callister

Yellow Falls, 2005, acrylic on paper

Jane Callister challenges notions of representation through her unique paint application process. Rather than painting onto the canvas, she pours and drips paint and other materials. In addition to questions of abstraction vs representation, she also challenges figure vs ground, color vs line, content vs form, and personal vs political.

Visually they include hard-edged drips, lacy stalagtites, and melted ice cream colors.

Her earlier works include representations of human bodies, but in her more recent works they are only implied. Now, she includes off-the-wall additions to her canvases.

Fred Tomaselli

Fred Tomaselli

Untitled (Expulsion), 2000, leaves, pills, mushrooms, photo collage, acrylic, and resin on wood panel

Gravity's Rainbow, 1999, leaves, pills, photo collage, flowers, acrylic, and resin on wood panel

Fred Tomaselli works with a variety of unorthodox materials in an attempt to transcend the banality of our everyday world. His life in Southern California has had a profound effect on his work, as he looks for a spiritual transport to the idea of "somewhere else". He includes themes inspired by Disneyland, music and drug culture, and wilderness.

His works are very aesthetically interesting. At first glance they appear to be patterns of paint on a wood panel, but they're actually composed of pot leaves, pills, wings, stems, petals, and photographs. He then uses acrylic paint and seals it with resin. The unusual materials reinforce the concepts of his paintings.

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama always wears polka dots and paints polka dots and other obsessive patterns. She works in neon, almost radioactive colors.

Her work has been classified as Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Pop Art.

It's important to mention that she's been living voluntarily in a psychiatric clinic since 1977.

Also she did a collaboration with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton.

http://www.nowness.com/day/2013/6/28/3135/yayoi-kusama-self-obliteration