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.)

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.

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 ;)

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.

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

Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer

Margarethe, 1981, oil and bundles of straw on canvas

Icarus- Sand of the Brandenburg March, 1981, oil, emulsion, sand, shellac, and photograph on canvas

He incorporates materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac into his large-scale oil paintings. Many of his works resemble landscapes or interiors of rooms.
He works with themes of German history, the horrors of the Holocaust, and the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah.

Also works in photography, sculpture, and book design.