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.

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.

Dana Schutz

Dana Schutz

Death Comes To Us All, 2003, oil on canvas

Twister Mat, 2003, oil on canvas

Dana Schutz's work has been described as teetering on the edge of tradition and innovation.

Still lifes become personified, portraits become events, and landscapes become constructions. She embraces the area in which the subject is composed and decomposing, formed and formless, inanimate and alive. She works with themes of death and discomfort.

She paints in thick impasto with heavy line work, deep colors, and dark shadows.

After looking at a variety of her work, I think she addresses reality in a very illogical, surrealist way.