Rosy Keyser

Rosy Keyser

A Blind Torpedo Walks Into a Bar, 2013, raffia, enamel, glass, wood, and basket

Saturday Nite Special, 2013, enamel, oil, and rope on canvas

Rosy Keyser can be classified as an abstract painter, although I might think she's more non-representational? She works beyond her medium's natural habitats by including materials derived from upstate New York like corrugated steel, beer cans, sawdust, and tarps. In fact some of her "paintings" appear to just be collages of materials and not paintings at all.

Her use of unusual materials seems to be about exploration and place.

Amy Cutler

Amy Cutler

Above the Fjord, gouache on paper

Tiger Mending, 2003, gouache on paper

Amy Cutler is a contemporary artist who makes illustrations of women, often dressed in Victorian style clothing, performing strange, cryptic tasks.

Formally she uses gouache on paper with large, white backgrounds that provide little context to the meanings. Figures are rendered simply but with exquisite detail. Her style is reminiscent of European Folk Art.

Her works have elements of humor and fairy tales.

Richard Estes

Richard Estes

Richard Estes can be classified as a photorealist painter. He paints a lot of New York City scenes and reflections of city life, although he avoids famous landmarks.

Extremely meticulous depiction of detail, high finish, and sharp focus. He paints intricate reflections of glass and mirror surfaces that look like high-definition photographs.  He doesn't include certain details like snow or dirt because he feels they will detract from the scene.

compared to Chuck Close and Dwayne Hanson.

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.

Nigel Cooke

Nigel Cooke

Nature Loves You, 2011-2012

1989, 2009, oil on linen

Nigel Cooke's large-scale paintings depict fantastical hyper-realistic scenes. His influences include Van Gogh, Gerhard Richter, graffiti, Dutch masters, graphic novels, and Byzantine art.

Themes of his work include the sublime, space, decay, death, self-destruction, and landscapes.

He does figurative paintings that evoke anxiety with large open backgrounds. He tries to use colors emotively to communicate ambivalence, doubt, and conflict.

article in which he describes his first painting experience ;)

Lorraine Shemesh

Lorraine Shemesh

Bubbles, 1990, oil on canvas

Spots, 2012, oil on canvas

Lorraine Shemesh is a hyper-realist painter. She lists Edward Hopper, athletic figures, dancers, Abstract Expressionism, and Neo-Impressionism as her influences.

Themes include unconventional cityscapes, figures, interiors, repetition, and water.

Her underwater scenes are super good - highly saturated colors with water distortion. Her earlier works are humorous and contemplative.

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.