Cy Twombly

Cy Twombly

Red Painting, 1961, oil, crayon, and pencil on canvas

Untitled, 1968, house paint and crayon on canvas

Cy Twombly evaded the dominant styles of the time: Pop, Abstract Expressionism, and Minimalism in favor of his large-scale, calligraphic, graffiti-style paintings.

He works in mixed media: sprayed graffiti-like paint on solid fields of gray, white, or tan. They appear to have been scribbled by a child.

His influences of each individual work are suggested in the titles. He sites the lines and smudges as the subjects of the paintings. He paints with cultural memory and sometimes evokes landscapes through use of color.

During the 1960s, his exhibitions were negatively received; people said their kid could paint that. His later works have been categorized into Romantic Symbolism.

Tomory Dodge

Tomory Dodge

Mar-Eye-Ah, 2010, oil on canvas

Weekend, 2005, oil on canvas

Tomory Dodge uses a variety of approaches to painting on a single surface. He wants to emphasize the immediate experience of painting via abstraction.

Some of his pieces appear to be smudges and lines in somewhat of a Cubist fashion, although others have a clear representational subject. His strong use of color and line suggest energy and movement.

He chooses not to fit into a preconceived notion of painting and has a hard time accepting the last marks as the last. He can be classified as an abstract artist who challenges representation with his unusual and energetic painting style.

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.

Julie Mehretu

Julie Mehretu

Dispersion, 2002, ink and acrylic on canvas

Julie Mehretu's work combines aspects of cartography, architectural drawing, urban planning, and abstract painting. She creates energetic compositions with interesting lines and colored planes. Her art has been called animated urbanscapes.

She layers materials like Mylar, vellum, and semi-transparent paper. In addition to painting directly, she sprays acrylic medium with an airbrush.

Rather than classical renderings of environments, she presents them in unexpected ways, sometimes symbolizing not real space.

Her work has been discussed in terms of globalism: each individual layer can represent views and perspectives.

Gregory Amenoff

Gregory Amenoff

Cirque, 2006, oil on panel

Riversea IV, 1999, oil on canvas

Gregory Amenoff paints light and the emotional atmosphere of light. He derives from landscapes and juxtaposes oppositional worlds. He can be described as an abstract artist whose lines are energetic and sweeping.

His works evokes elements of earth, wind, fire, and water. (The two seen here have lightning bolts and waves). Formally, he works with rich surfaces and thick paint handling. His colors are deep and contrasty. His compositions are often unbalanced and unsettling.