{Five for Friday} 5 Artists

5 of the artists whose work i've been drawn to at different times.  ok so when i look at art i'm not big on subject matter or style.  i'm mostly interested in 'how did the artist use the media.'  i look at the lightness or heaviness of brush strokes or construction methods.  i try to understand what the artist was trying to understand when i look at the physical remnant of time taken to explore an idea.  i wouldn't say that these artists inspire me.  i would say that i found similarities in what i was/am doing in the methods and techniques i saw them using.

1. matisse ... when i first started drawing when i was in my early 20s matisse was one of the first artists i was interested in.  i liked how his cartoonish black outlines still read as real people in real atmosphere, even though they were so crudely drawn.

matisse at the MoMA

2. picasso ... more accurately the 'picasso-style'...again when i first started drawing, i was taken with the way picasso could rearrange an image and still make it legible.  i loved the profile/ 3/4 combos he created.

3. rauschenburg ... assemblage. the use of media and construction made sense in my brain.  i like his color palette too.

rauschenberg, charlene

4. flavin ... interestingly enough i would say flavin is one minimalist i really enjoy and i would say that they way he used light to transform a space, made me rethink the idea of how i show the things i make.  i started looking at installation art and getting into the idea of audience experience and seeing how flavin's fluorescents could manipulate a space beyond themselves.

dan flavin, blue intensity

5. the clayton brothers ... saw a show of their work at the madison museum of contemporary art a couple of years ago.  their 'play house' constructions were right up my alley.

clayton brothers at the madison museum of art