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.

Yoshitomo Nara

Yoshitomo Nara

Cosmic Eyes, 2007, acrylic on canvas

Yoshitomo Nara is a Japanese Pop artist. He paints illustration-like innocent children with a sadistic twist. Big-eyed, scowling, and malevolent kids. He also incorporates text into his paintings for a narrative clue.

He draws influence from loneliness and freedom.

Formally he uses flat areas of bold color , thick outlines, and stylized forms.

He says the children in his paintings are thinking about what you're thinking about ;)

Inka Essenhigh

Inka Essenhigh

Subway, 2005, oil on canvas

Shopping, 2005, oil on linen

Inka Essenhigh's paintings can be described as Pop Surrealism. She paints cartoonish, highly abstracted human forms, turning everyday banality into a surrealist case study on modern, urban life.

Formally, she paints strangely attenuated forms in flat, simple colors. Her use of seamless paint appears digital and animated, kind of like Fantasia. Her figures appear distorted in their faces and bodies.

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.

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.

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

Wilhelm Sasnal

Wilhelm Sasnal

Girl Smoking (Anka), 2001, oil on canvas

Soldiers, 2001, oil on canvas

Wilhelm Sasnal modifies reality by painting banal situations and objects in unusual compositions. He borrows subjects from art history, 20th century propaganda, and photojournalism. He explores modern concepts of beauty in his portrait series. The cigarettes in the women's mouths represent self-destruction. Many of his paintings are contemporary versions of Pop Art.

He paints in a way that you can clearly see the medium is paint.

Very similar to Luc Tuymans.