Maps

Paula Scher

http://photos.uwishunu.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/PaulaScherParis.jpg

Mark Bradford

https://terrisportfolio.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/mark_bradford_kryptonite.jpg

Shannon Rankin

http://mentalfloss.com/sites/default/legacy/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/2965100071_c36c8be08a_z-565x450.jpg

David Shrigley

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/images/uploads/2006/08/shrigley-map.jpg

James Turrell

James Turrell was born in 1943 in Los Angeles and went to Pomona College for psychology and mathematics. The artist is currently living in Arizona. He pursued art in graduate school and went to Claremont Graduate School in Claremont California, where he received his MFA. Turrell's work involves space and light, which impacts the audience’s eye, mind, and body. The artist has a fascination for light and man's place on earth. He states that he allows us to see. He has been at celestial observatory, working for the past 30 years. When viewing his art, people have greater self-awareness, meditation, and patience. He received a Mac Aruthur and Guggenheim award.

         I really enjoy Turrell's work. I noticed in all of his images, there are points of lightness and darkness. My eyes focus on the section of the photograph where there is light. My favorite image is the "Roden Crater." I like how in most of the picture you're surrounded by darkness, yet there is a brightness on the outside to capture you're attention. I found this picture interesting because it looks like the shape of a keyhole in a door. I feel like I'm looking at something from a different perspective.

http://www.art21.org/artists/james-turrell/slideshows

Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas was born in 1936, in New York and went to Mount Holyoke College in 1958. She attended Columbia University in 1965 and received her MFA. She is currently a professor at MIT. Her work is video, installation, sculpture, drawing and is collaborative with musicians and dancers. She draws on mythic stories from cultures and texts with the politics. In some of the works, there are masks to emphasize symbols and self-awareness. The artists reflects into metaphors for the divide between the subjective and the objective vision and the loss of fixed identities. She has received various awards such as the Rockefeller Foundation in 1990, the American Film Institute's Maya Deren Award for Video in 1989, the Guggenheim Foundation in 1976 and the National Endowment for the Arts in 1974.

My favorite piece of work is the "Organic Honey's Vertical Roll" because I feel in the image like I'm an observer in the scene. The picture is taken from the back corner so it feels like I'm behind the scenes. The man is recording a woman so it shows that there is motion in the photograph. The woman's costume really caught my eye in this picture because of the tall hat. I also liked the images at the beach in the "Nova Scotia Beach Dance" because it shows motion and different actions.

http://www.art21.org/artists/joan-jonas

Robert Adams

Robert Adams was born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1937. He went to the University of Redlands in California for his undergrad and then went to the University of Southern Califortnia, where he recieved his PHD. His work is a contradiction between landscapes transformed, human presence and the beauty of light and land rendered by the camera. The photos reflect the hollowness during the nineteenth century. He received some awards such as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award in 1994 and the Spectrum International Prize for Photography in 1995. He's had exhibits in the Yale University Art Gallery in 2002, Denver Art Museum in 1993 and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1989.

His photographs particularly caught my attention because it was usually people departing from each other or people by themselves in an open area. My favorite piece of work is "Dead Plant, Barbed Wire, and Razor Wire, Palos Verdes, California."I like this photograph because something as simple as barb wire can look so fascinating because of the shape and the way the wire twists.The photos capture the physical traces of human life such as a clear-cut forest or a half-built house. I like how in each picture my eye is drawn to a specific section.

http://www.art21.org/artists/robert-adams?expand=1

Janine Antoni

Janine Antoni was born in 1964, in Freeport, Bahamas. Antoni received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1989. Her art is a blend of sculpture and performance art. Everyday activities such as bathing and sleeping are made into art. She uses her body as a primary tool for making sculptures. For example, she chiseled lard and chocolate with her teeth and used brainwave signals recorded at night for different pieces of art. She has had works displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art,  S.I.T.E. Santa Fe, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin. 

My favorite piece of art is the "Moor." She taught herself to make a rope out of materials donated by friends and materials. She twisted materials together to create a  life-line that unified a group of people into a whole. This piece caught my eye because of the colorful flowers in it. I really like how she creates her pieces out of various materials. I like the different things she braids together because it's unlike anything I've seen before. When looking at her different pieces of work, it seems like the ropes she creates are very long. For example, the one is stretched across the length of the entire room.

http://www.art21.org/artists/janine-antoni

Lynda Benglis

Lynda Benglis was born in 1941, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She went to Newcomb College in 1964 and received her BFA and received her honorary doctorate from Kansas City Art Institute in 2000. Her work is the result of materials in actions such as cinched metal, dripped latex, poured latex and foam. These sculptures have bold colors, sensual lines, and references to the human body. She use foundation, lumps, knots and fans. Other materials used are lead, gold leaf, polyurethane, and glitter. Some of her works explore cultural heritages such as Indian architecture. She received awards such as the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975 and grants for the National Endowment for the Arts in 1979. Benglis has work displayed in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Dallas Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim. 

I was particularly drawn to her work because I thought the materials that were used looked very different, such as different metals. I thought the shapes of her work were original because they were twisted around on themselves. I liked the contrastive colors she used and the way she applied them because they don't completely cover the piece of work.

http://www.art21.org/artists/lynda-benglis

Katharina Grosse

Katarina Gross was a painter that was born in 1961, in Freiburg, Germany. She uses sprayed acrylic colors on large sculptures or walls. She has an interest in imagining things big in relationship to one's surroundings. She likes exploring this thought while observing the world and being in it. She uses architecture and the natural world for juxtapositions. Her work generally has complex narratives psychedelic vistas, evocative titles, and everyday objects. She builds her work with layers of colors. She is a professor and has received awards such as the Fred-Thieler-Preis in 2003, and the Schmidt-Rottluff-Stipendium in 1993. Her exhibits were displayed in places such as Public Art Fund in 2013, Nasher Sculpture Center in 2013, MOCA Cleveland in 2012 and Mass MoCa in 2010. 

I was really interested in her arts because I loved the different layers of vibrant colors in her work. The colors she uses in the works are mesmerizing. I thought it was interesting that she created these patterns of colors large-scale sculptures, walls and floors. I liked the "Just the Two of Us" which is the piece of art outside. If I was outside, the colors would definitely capture my attention and keep my interest. I like that her sculptures usually have sharp edges but she usually paints with softer lines.

http://www.art21.org/artists/katharina-grosse

Judy Pfaff

Judy Pfaff is an artist that creates two and three dimensional sculptures. She was born in London, England in 1946. She went to Washington University in 1971 for her BFA. She received her MFA from Yale University in 1973. Her sculptures weave landscape, color and architecture as a whole. Her work is made out of steel, plaster, fiberglass, and natural elements. For example, for some projects she used tree roots. The artist has interests in natural motifs. She has received various awards such as a Bessie in 1984 and a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation award in 2004. Pfaff has had art exhibits at places such as the University of Wisconsin, St. Louis Art Museum and the Elvehjem Museum of Art. 

My favorite image of Pfaff's is the "Elephant" which is 50 feet high. The piece of work is made out of birch tree, fiberglass resin, steel, woven copper wire, duct tubing, plant materials, and water. I really like this piece of art because it looked like an elephant even though it was made out of these unusual materials. The branches make the piece look very natural with sharp edges. I really liked her other pieces of work with wire because the shapes were very unique. All of her art has very unusual shapes, which makes it stand out. She seems to use a lot of circles in her pieces of art.

Commentary on her work:

"Wall works evoked fantastic undersea landscapes or bizarre fungi… Here the worlds displayed brilliant colors and even garnish colors and occasionally neon lights." -Eleanor Heartney Art News

"At Zoubok, the artist takes a more ecological turn with moss-colored drawings and collages, tumbling plastic sculptures with floral motifs, and a stunning wall-sized work that incorporates twining branches, images of fish and crustaceans, and Chinese lanterns refashioned into birds’ nests. "Through Nov 15. (Zoubok, 525 W. 26th St. 212-675-7490;

"Visiting Judy Pfaff’s studio is special because I know I’ll see things I’ve never seen before...The organization of each work area is immaculate, including the work-in-progress… An intense artist, Pfaff transparently and emphatically draws from and brings together many traditions, cultures, sources, and forces of nature." Jan Garden Castro

"She is unstoppable, having devised a working method that is capable of absorbing an enormous range of materials, processes and moods...Pfaff is an artist of the old school. She puts the stamp of her personality on whatever theme she takes up. She thoroughly reinvigorates a tired trope — the natural vs. the man-made — and in the process suggests that just about anything is open to being revisited, reinvented, rediscovered. Embracing a familiar idea and completely recasting it in her own idiom, she demonstrates an awe-inspiring tenacity. " -Stephen Maine

"The wall installations at Loretta Howard have an orbital, ethereal feel to them...

The circular forms take on the persona of planets in a solar system appearing to spin in space. High tone color is accomplished so simply by using plastic and light emanates from fluorescent bulbs. Pfaff is so accomplished at having order emerge out of a sense of chaos. A century ago, Kandinsky, achieved a similar result in his pursuit of abstraction."- Max-Art

Subject matter-I see several pink and orange circles. Some of the circles have hollow centers. The center circle is in front of a black and orange background. The circles are surrounded by wavy lines of purple. There are lights behind the piece of work. Electrical wires are coming from the bottom of the piece.

Medium- The piece is made from melted plastic, pigmented expanded foam, acrylic, resin, plexi glass, steel and fluorescents. The plastic created soft looking lines.

Form-There colors are pink, orange, blue, purple, and black. There is light coming behind the piece form the fluorescents. The lights are emphasized in the piece. The circles in the piece have radial symmetry but the purple plastic is asymmetrical.  The piece covers the size of the wall.

There is juxtaposition between asymmetrical shapes and electricity. These shapes are found in nature and they are put next to light, reflecting nature in the digital age.

Recontextualization- The lights are put in this installation to reflect ideas on nature in the digital age.

Associations- organic shapes in nature
The piece explores the idea of nature in the digital age.

.http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/judy-pfaff

http://www.art21.org/slideshows/judy-pfaff/artwork-survey-1990s
http://www.judypfaffstudio.com