Mark Tansey

Mark Tansey

The Innocent Eye Test, oil on canvas

Doubting Thomas, 1985, oil on canvas

Mark Tansey has been described as a historian-painter of the Postmodern art world. (If you glanced at them you might think they were history paintings but they have surprising and unexpected subject matter). (You might even think they were highly faded photographs.)

This guy is pretty cool - he paints representations of Doubting Thomas and people painting a spaceship. Represents action/instant painting, because you couldn't paint a spaceship because it would take too long. He uses a monochromatic color scheme.

He is very technically skilled in his use of humor and criticism of art.

Francis Alys

Francis Alys (two dots over the y)

I was initially drawn to Francis Alys through his work with performance art, photography, and book arts.
He says the style of his painting is derived from hand-painted signs in his neighborhood in Mexico City. He sort of plays a game of Telestrations with commercial sign painters by giving them copies and then working from the reproductions.  As the process continued, it would ask questions about painting itself and relationships with painting and between painters in the modern world.

He works with narratives and introspective situations. His work with reproductions reminds me of Luc Tuymans.

http://www.francisalys.com/public/painting.html