Found Art: Christa Palazzolo

I stumbled upon Christa Palazzolo's work the other day and I was attracted immediately. She's an artist working in Austin, TX, who has a illustration driven approach to painting that's become rather popular over the past few years, with a photo realism quality to it. If I were a betting woman, I'd say one of her immediate influences is Wayne Thiebaud. He has similar ideaology behind his work as Christa, "Currently focused on using portraiture as a vehicle of mockery,isolation, discomfort, and objectification, she strives to confront formal aspects of painting with a contemporary voice and commentary." (taken from her artist statement).

Let's do a little comparison shall we...

Thiebaud's "Bikini" is about subtle objectification while Palazzolo's "Christa Lee" is much more blatent. "Bikini" is brilliant in that the woman is confronting the audience, wearing something that is so specifically meant for women it's undeniable objectification and her stance is not meant to provide sexual context. He's playing with the role of woman, much like a viewer at the zoo, you are seeing this woman as a object, a bikini's purpose is to cover female parts but leave as little to the imagination as possible. It's a clinical and factual interruptation.
"Christa Lee" has similar much more apparent forms of objectification, her battered face and bra worn on the outside of clothes is a forced role, her heels are too big, she's trying to fit into the role that has been assigned to her, a much more personal look into the idea of being a woman.
The thing I find most interesting about the two pieces is the idea of objectification coming from a male artist vs. a female artist.

Wayne Thiebaud's "Bikini" vs. Christa Palazzolo's "Christa Lee"

Inspiration: Pablo Neruda Poetry

Love Sonnet VII

Come with me, I said, and no one knew
where, or how my pain throbbed,
no carnations or barcaroles for me,
only a wound that love had opened.

I said it again: Come with me, as if I were dying,
and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into silence.
O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!

That is why, when I heard your voice repeat
Come with me, it was as if you had let loose
the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine

that geysers flooding from deep in its vault;
in my mouth I felt the taste of fire again,
of blood and carnations, of rock & scald.

-Pablo Neruda

You swallowed everything

I'm going through a lot of changes lately and the shift is welcome. Everytime my heart feels empty my soul feels full. It's like electricity pumping through me, pain awakens buried ambition. Back to my paintings, my ink, my pencils. I've missed them.
When I feel like this I like to look browse images of my favorite artists, muscians, objects and document them, they set the mood of my life.
This is the best way I can explain how I'm feeling.

Inspiration: Picasso's Light Drawings via Time Magazine

Pablo Picasso working within the medium of Light, interesting concept! I was thrilled to stumble upon these photos.

Archives: Inspiration: Egon Schiele

A coversation in a cab reminded me about this post which I had finished but never published. So better late than never...

This is a self portrait I did in spring 2008, watercolor on dyed paper, with Egon Schiele's "Selbstporträt mit Lampionfrüchten", 1912. Egon Schiele is one of my favorite artists, his work with portraiture and figures have been inspirational for me over the years. I found it quite intriguing and revealing looking at the two pieces side by side. It's interesting to think about your surroundings or things you are looking at infiltrating your brain and effecting what comes out of you. I think I may do more paintings like this in the future, I like the visual of lavendar skin tones, much like Sargent's "Madame X" I find it eerie and beautiful at the same time.

Inspiration: Skateboard Art

Skateboard deck artwork by: Marylin Minter, Alexxx Castaneda, Audrey Kawasaki, James Jean, and Doodah.

Illustration: Anna Higgie

One of my favorite illustrators Anna Higgie has new work up. Check her out! I liked this piece in particular ...

6 months and finally a blog post!

Instead of becoming obsessive and writing massive posts/opinions, I have decided it would be much more efficient if I just post photos and quick ideas of what's inspiring me at the present moment.

I went to the ballet last month and was blown away by not only the beautiful dancers (of course), but the set design was incredible. Set designers are similar to master painters, light, composition, mood are all found within a well done set design. Cecil Beaton and Yves Saint Laurent worked in set design, both creative genius', and I can't help to notice the connection between the two.

The Red Shoes (1948) is one of my favorite films, the visual effects were far ahead of it's time, it's absolutely breath taking and every scene is like a painting. It's a visual masterpiece and the lighting alone is worth heavy praise, here are some photos from the film.

Inspiration: Experimental Music and Nam June Paik

My life revolves around music and art, both influence eachother and inspire me. I'm a big fan of experimental "noise" music and I find the art that influences it stunning as well. Happenings, Fluxus, and Video Art have made it possible for bands like Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance, and Black Dice to really become a revolution, a psychedelic art revival, and communicate visual information along with their music.
Artists like Fast Friends and the Paper Rad crew have gained a huge following in the underground noise scene on the West Coast. The pixilated, Pop, retro technology look is reminiscent of Nam June Paik's Video Art installations and Paik being one of my favorite artist's deserves much of the credit for the look of "noise art" videos. When you watch these videos back to back the similarities pretty easy to indentify. Some of the most amazing musicians of all time were close friends of Paik, in fact John Cage aka "The Godfather of Experimental music" was one of Paik's greatest mentors and influences. Just another reminder that art has the power to influence it's surroundings and inspire even the most brilliant minds.

Watch Nam June Paik's "Global Groove"

Now watch Black Dice's music video for "Kokomo" and Gore

What do you think?

If you are into the noise phenomenon, check out the book "Gore" by Black Dice and Jason Frank Rothernberg.

Photo of the Week

Angelica Huston wearing Alexander Calder's necklace entitled "The Jealous Husband" for the 1976 cover of New York Magazine.

Inspiration: David Downton

I think all watercolor artists have a healthy obsession with illustrators due to their mastery of the medium and David Downton www.daviddownton.com is one of the most talented illustrators out there. I've had a love affair with his work since I first laid eyes on it and it's always exciting to see such successful, technical imagery in illustration. His work is featured in many major advertisement campaigns such as, Chanel, Tiffany & Co., various book covers including the cover of "100 Years of Illustration" as seen below.

His line work is beautiful and his floating imagery creates such interesting use of negative space. As a young artist I sometimes find myself wondering why my work looks so amateur, so ordinary, but I think the key to a really wonderful drawing is due mostly in part to variation in line and strong editing skills. The only real way to deal with this dilemma is drawing more, more, more and it seems as though that's exactly what Downton does. "For me this is the hardest and the most interesting thing. In order to leave something out, first you have to put it in, or at least understand how every thing works. I do dozens of drawings on to layout paper taking the best from each one as I go. When the drawing looks right I start to eliminate, to de-construct if you like. I keep working until it looks spontaneous."

I really enjoyed his answer when asked what the secret to becoming a successful fashion illustrator, "Fluidity, mastery of the medium - capturing a sense of the moment, layout and use of space and most important of all, strong drawing. You can't be too good at drawing." I couldn't agree more and I wish that drawing was pressed upon me more when I was attending art school. I'm still trying to make up for lost time but I do know that my most apparent growth spurts in drawing skill were achieved in my figure drawing classes. Working from life is the most difficult, embarrassing and mandatory thing artists can do.

John Singer Sargent: Madame X

It seems like every artist I know is obsessed with one man, John Singer Sargent. I'll admit I was late to join the Sargent craze but after yet another visit to New York and the Met I can say that Sargent's work easily out shined all the other pieces in the room. Arthur and I walked in and we could see Madame X through the doors and without hesitation we made our way over to her. It's such a beautiful, extraordinary, stylish piece, and it was drenched in controversy.

It's funny that this piece caused such an uproar after Manet shocked Paris nearly 20 years before Madame X would enter the Salon. The sexual nature of her poise and the lilac undertones in her skin not only ruined Madame Gautreau's social standings in Parisian society but removed Sargent from his throne as one of Paris' favorite American painter of the time. Yet the painting was never destroyed and consequently the piece became one of the most celebrated pieces of all time for the same reasons it was denounced in 1884.

The original piece (Left) featured Madame Gautreau with one strap down but Sargent changed this detail when he took the painting back to his studio for safe keeping. He was afraid that Gautreau's family would destroy the piece so he took it down before the exhibition's completion.

I think this is one of the most incredible portraits of all time, her skin tone and clothing are that of a unique, avant-garde, nontraditional beauty. According to Vernon Lee "Sargent's outspoken love of the exotic [and the] unavowed love of rare kinds of beauty, for incredible types of elegance like his Mme. Gautreau" are what made him such an incredible painter. Sargent's studies for Madame X are equally as devoted and beautiful. Below are his graphite and watercolor studies.

Influence: John Gannam

I stumbled upon artist/illustrator John Gannam (1907-1965) a while ago and I was blown away by his watercolor paintings. His work is compositionally stunning and the emotional content is subtle yet powerful. Like Norman Rockwell, Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer, Gannam's illustrations are praise worthy, even in the fine art world, yet serve as functional advertisements. These are some of the most beautiful and technically perfect watercolors I have ever come across and yet Gannam never made the jump from commercial illustration to fine art like Homer and Hopper did.

It was a little bit difficult to find information about Gannam but what I did dig up was that he was a member of the American Watercolor Society, was on the faculty of the Danbury Academy of Arts, and was elected to the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame in 1981.

I just ordered, Lessons From a Lifetime of Watercolor Painting by Donald Voorhees, it features work by Gannam and other famous illustrators from the past, hopefully by studying his work I will be able to uncover a few of the tricks that made Gannam's watercolors one of a kind.