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

Marlene Dumas

Marlene Dumas

Marlene Dumas' paintings blur the lines of race and identity. She is interested in the ambiguous divide between the public and private self. She also includes themes of sexuality, empowerment, and exploitation.

Formally she works from photographic imagery. The emotional, carnal quality of her images redefines the content of her sources. She uses oil paint on canvas in high contrasting colors or fluid watercolor on paper.

Ellen Gallagher

Ellen Gallagher

DeLuxe, 2006, mixed media on magazine ads

Dirty O's, 2006, pencil, watercolor, plasticine, and cut paper

Ellen Gallagher's identity as an African American woman is at the forefront of her artworks. Formally, she uses a variety of materials and processes. The language of magazine ads is reactivated in her work; she's especially interested in tackling physical transformation. Her works include themes of fashion, modernism, mass media, and race.

DeLuxe, seen above, was and possibly still is at the Walker Art Center.

A lot of her works are untitled which makes them hard to research.

http://www.art21.org/artists/ellen-gallagher