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.

Amy Cutler

Amy Cutler

Above the Fjord, gouache on paper

Tiger Mending, 2003, gouache on paper

Amy Cutler is a contemporary artist who makes illustrations of women, often dressed in Victorian style clothing, performing strange, cryptic tasks.

Formally she uses gouache on paper with large, white backgrounds that provide little context to the meanings. Figures are rendered simply but with exquisite detail. Her style is reminiscent of European Folk Art.

Her works have elements of humor and fairy tales.

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.

Will Cotton

Will Cotton

Ice Cream, 2009

Cherry Pop, 2000

Will Cotton juxtaposes landscapes of ice cream and candy, etc. with portraits of beautiful women. His works resemble a Candy Land scene or a gingerbread house. These utopias evoke sight, smell, touch, and taste.

He features elements of advertising, human desire, sugar, and sex (all relatable). He paints with old master technical precision. Some of his paintings appear to be photographs.

His use of color, usually pastel,  provides a dreamlike quality to his paintings.

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.

Bernard Frize

Bernard Frize

Vibisi, 2001, acrylic and resin on canvas

Neobi, 2004, acrylic and resin on canvas

Bernard Frize is a French artist whose works question the materiality and processes of painting. Viewers often wonder how he creates his seemingly impossible line variations and patterns.

Formally, he uses acrylic and resin to create works that appear to have entered the world fully formed. He works on a large scale and uses a variety of often unusual colors. They appear sort of like he melted crayons and then drew with them.

He creates process paintings that have been compared to a choreographed dance. He created Reciproque by following directions shouted to him by someone else in the room.

His line work is comparative to Karin Davie.

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.

Fabian Marcaccio

Fabian Marcaccio

The Predator, 2001, mixed media installation

Fabian Marcaccio extroverts abstraction by deconstructing, dissecting, unraveling, and reconstructing Modernist ideals of painting. He creates sculptural composites with mixed media.

Formally he uses canvas as both a support and an image. He uses clear silicone gel to enhance the textural quality of brushstrokes.

He works with themes of manipulation, destruction, and reconstruction. His work could be considered abstract or non representational.

He says he engages the generic elements of painting to create mutual betrayals.

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