Pat Steir

Pat Steir

Nothing, 1974, oil on canvas

August Waterfall, 2000, photogravure and aquatint

Pat Steir is a painter and printmaker who works with abstracted landscapes.

Formally, she works on a large scale and frequently uses silver, gold, white, and Paynes gray. She puts X's through things which implies a theme of destruction. She says she wanted to destroy images as symbols and that no imagery was the same as endless imagery.

In her waterfall paintings, she pours paint on canvas and allows colors to mix and merge (a wet on wet technique). In her colored abstract paintings, the colors correspond with 5 Buddha families. In fact a lot of her paintings are representative of her interest in Asian, specifically Chinese, art. (The act of paint flowing corresponds to the philosophy of Daoism.)

Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander

Mirror Plane, 2012

Shahzia Sikander likes the idea of exhausting an image. Sikander creates stimulating visual experiences for her audience through the addition of modern and non-traditional elements by forcing the viewer to reconcile conflicting sensibilities hidden within beautifully rendered landscapes as well as offering a wide range of stimuli from the traditional Muslim world to popular Western culture, such as mandalas, airplanes and cowboy boots and soccer balls. 

For her subjects, she mixes personal and historical experiences such as reading the Qu'ran. She seeks to subvert Eastern stereotypes through her work.

She is very skilled in Indo-Persian miniature painting technique and formal practice.  She frequently uses repetitive shapes to represent movement. In the one above, she uses the same shape repetition for the hair and the flight of birds, which is really cool. She does a lot of performance-based installations to further get her concept across.

Art 21 video

Nigel Cooke

Nigel Cooke

Nature Loves You, 2011-2012

1989, 2009, oil on linen

Nigel Cooke's large-scale paintings depict fantastical hyper-realistic scenes. His influences include Van Gogh, Gerhard Richter, graffiti, Dutch masters, graphic novels, and Byzantine art.

Themes of his work include the sublime, space, decay, death, self-destruction, and landscapes.

He does figurative paintings that evoke anxiety with large open backgrounds. He tries to use colors emotively to communicate ambivalence, doubt, and conflict.

article in which he describes his first painting experience ;)

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.