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.)

Hung Liu

Hung Liu

Cherry, 2010, mixed media

Rainmaker, 2011, mixed media on tapestry

Hung Liu studied mural painting in Beijing. She includes Chinese history in nearly all of her paintings.

She shows images of refugees, women, and children- references of anonymous Chinese historical photographs. Heavy use of metaphor for the loss of memory and traditional Chinese symbolism.

Formally she uses linseed oil to make the painting look drippy/obviously referential of paint itself. This is a GREAT example of space and place! She uses mixed media on panel, canvas, or tapestry.  Mixed media breaks figure/background planes.

Albert Oehlen

Albert Oehlen

Piece, 2003, oil on canvas

Mirage of Steel, 2003, oil on canvas

Albert Oehlen's paintings are neither beautiful nor seductive. Their self-consciously brutal surfaces seem to be corrupted from within, a perversion of the paintings they might have been. Link to Saatchi Gallery. 

He combines aspects of figural sexuality, mechanical distance, and painterly abstraction. It is possible to find representations of objects or figures in his mostly-abstracted works, although he exposes the limitations of both.

Formally, puddles and washes convey a refracted, dreamlike sensibility. He plays with depth perception and foreground/background relationship. Some of his compositions seem rushed and crowded, while others seem discouragingly bare.

Other works not shown here are mixed media on panel, inkjet prints, and collaborative works with other artists.

Julie Mehretu

Julie Mehretu

Dispersion, 2002, ink and acrylic on canvas

Julie Mehretu's work combines aspects of cartography, architectural drawing, urban planning, and abstract painting. She creates energetic compositions with interesting lines and colored planes. Her art has been called animated urbanscapes.

She layers materials like Mylar, vellum, and semi-transparent paper. In addition to painting directly, she sprays acrylic medium with an airbrush.

Rather than classical renderings of environments, she presents them in unexpected ways, sometimes symbolizing not real space.

Her work has been discussed in terms of globalism: each individual layer can represent views and perspectives.