American Art Archives – Page 19 of 19

Meredith Dittmar: Sculpture

January 7, 2010 By Wendy Campbell

“Meredith Dittmar is an artist living and playing in Portland OR. Born near Boston Mass, she grew up in a world of pet pigs, horses, hay-forts and spy games . Follow this with an education in computer science, a career in interactive design, a compulsive need to create, and a drive to Seek and you get the major elements of her person and work.

Dittmars human-animal-plant-energy amalgams contain threads of common elements and colors to express deep levels of union across themes of biology, technology, and consciousness . Her characters are frequently involved in quiet expressive moments, or lounge facing their audience so they can share their inner space. Dittmar believes it is this space we recognize in ourselves, and through convening in that space, the interconnectedness of all things is revealed. She sees the act of spontaneous artistic creation as part of a larger practice of being present, and a way to better understand herself and reality.

Dittmars work is featured in the books Dot dot Dash and Mascotte 2, along with numerous magazines and online publications. In conjunction with her artwork she works as an independent character designer and maintains her company Corporatepig, through which she continues to create thousands of unique handmade characters called “My Guys”.” (bio from artist website)

To see more of Dittmar’s sculptures, visit CorporatePig.com. There is also a great interview on Fecal Face.

Nemo Gould: Sculpture

September 30, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Recently, I stumbled upon the wonderfully amusing found object and kinetic sculptures of Nemo Gould. Born to artist parents in 1975, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Gould has been creating his odd creatures and abstract sculptures from old vacuum cleaners, kitchen pots, gasoline pumps, and whatever else he can get his hands on, for more than 20 years.

Named after the protagonist in Windsor McKay’s comic strip “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” Gould’s work has fittingly evolved to reflect the images and mythology of comic books and Science Fiction. Equally as fitting is his tendency to collect and dismantle anything with moving parts.

Gould has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute and a Masters of Fine Arts from U.C. Berkeley. After graduation, he quickly threw himself into the pursuit of his childhood dreams. “My work appeals to the 7-year-old boy mind, because I still have one… I take silly very seriously.”

Over his career, Gould has produced a prolific body of work that attempts to reconcile the innocent wonder of youth with the dull complexity of the adult experience. “Most adults are dangerously lacking in wonder. As we age and learn more of the answers to life’s mysteries, I think we lose part of what keeps us alive. When I am working, I am always trying to make things that can produce a child like response from a jaded adult—it’s a matter of life and death!”

Gould has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums across the United States and abroad and has been featured often in national media, including Wired and Juxtapoz magazines.

To see more of Nemo Gould’s work and to watch video of his sculptures in action, visit Nemomatic.com.

Greg Brotherton: Sculpture

September 9, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Today’s featured artist is metal /kinetic sculptor Greg Brotherton. Born in 1968 in Aims, Iowa, Brotherton spent most of his youth in Utah and Colorado. After graduating in 1987 with a degree in graphic design from the Academy of Art in Colorado, Brotherton moved to California where he worked as a commercial artist for the next twenty years.

Brotherton has a compulsive and consuming drive to build things: “I strive to create heroic icons from our ever evolving cultural saga. Icons that juxtapose mythology with pop culture and invest ordinary objects with fantastic, sometimes diabolical, function.”

Working with hammer-formed steel and re-purposed objects, Brotherton’s pieces “originate from a disordered mechanical history, often revealed through a dystopian view of pop culture.”

Brotherton’s scultpures have been exhibited throughout the US as well as receiving international recognition. In 2007, he was invited to serve as the featured artist at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference in Monterey, California.

Brotherton currently lives with his wife Amy and son Jack in La Jolla, California and owns the Device Gallery in San Diego, California. For more information, visit Greg’s website at Brotron.com.

Brian Despain: Painting

August 28, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Interested in art from childhood, Brian Despain has a BFA from eastern Michigan University and has worked as a graphic designer, 3D modeler, photo-retoucher, illustrator, and concept artist for the video game industry.

Despain’s paintings combine elements from the natural world with technology creating a post apocalyptic feel. His penchant for robots (100 Robots series) has a purpose as well: “I strive to create images that appeal a viewer to take part in the artistic process. I do this by creating images that hit a broad chord rather than a single note. Using familiar, global emotional situations, things like love, loss, discovery, and fear, I give the viewer a broad direction to head, but let them discover the specific path. The robots allow the viewer to more easily step into this role. If I were to put “real” people in the same situations I think the reaction to my images would be vastly different. “

Despain will be exhibiting at Roq La Rue Gallery in Seattle in November 2009. For more information about Brian Despain, visit DespainArt.com. There is also a great interview on Arrested Motion Blog.

Stephen Fitz-Gerald: Metal Sculpture

August 17, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

This week’s Deviant is Northern California metal sculptor Stephen Fitz-Gerald. Fitz-Gerald grew up in an isolated fishing village on the coast of Maine. Both of his parents were artists and Fitz-Gerald began learning metal sculpting at an early age.

Fitz-Gerald feels very strongly in the Renaissance ideal of becoming competent in many mediums. He works in diverse mediums from sculpture to photography, decorative arts such as jewelry and furniture, as well as outdoor structures such as fountains, gates, gazebos, trellises and winery doors. If that wasn’t enough, he also composes trance-ambient music and writes fiction and poetry. Of this ideal he says:

“Some ideas are better expressed in a song than in a drawing or more clearly portrayed in sculpture than flat work. The more artistic languages you speak, the more chances of you getting your message across. And the positive side benefit of this versatility, which the Renaissance artists knew, is that each medium has an energy signature, and they each tend to stimulate each other. So rather than the effect of depletion occurring, as one might expect by spreading oneself too thin, actually the reverse occurs. There is a compounding of energy that allows a jumping from one medium to the next in a dynamic cycle of inspiration and insight.”

To see more of Stephen Fitz-Gerald’s work, visit his profile on Deviant Art or his website: Stephen Fitz-Gerald Fine Art.com

Sources: Interview – Pieces-Zine

Stephanie Pui-Mun Law: Fantasy Art

August 16, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Suday’s image is entitled “Offerings 2” by American artist Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. To see more of her work, visit ShadowScapes.com.

Chris Jordan: Awareness Through Art

August 15, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

(The images above depict one million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours.)

The video below is a very moving TED Talk given by American photographer Chris Jordan. Jordan depicts images of western culture’s consumerism revealing the startling statistics of our daily consumption. He transforms the data about everyday items such as paper cups, cell phones, plastic bottles, and other mass produced goods, and makes large-format, long-zoom artwork.

Jordan has published a number of books including “Intolerable Beauty – Portraits of American Mass Consumption”, “In Katrina’s Wake – Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster”, “Running the Numbers – An American Self Portrait”, and “Running the Numbers II – Portraits of Global Mass Culture”.

Jordan’s goal is to create meaning out of the enormous statistics we encounter. He does this by taking the raw language of data and translates it into a more universal visual language that can be felt. He believes that if we can feel this information, then it will matter to us more and hopefully encourage action towards change.

To find out more, visit Chris Jordan.com.

Esao Andrews: Painting

August 13, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Today, I Stumbled upon the dark and sometimes eerie paintings of American artist Esao Andrews. Andrews grew up in Mesa, Arizona and moved to New York City in 1996 to study illustration at the School of Visual Arts. Early influences include Klimt, Schiele, Mucha, Victorian/ Pre-Raphaelite painters, and Joe Sorren. Andrews graduated in 1996 and initially worked as a flash animator, painting in his free time, and designing skateboards for Baker Skateboards.

Andrews exhibited in his first major show alongside John John Jesse in 2003 at Fuse Gallery in New York. Since then, he has worked with artist Tara McPherson on a DC Comics project, produced cover art for rock band Circa Survive, and recently had a his artwork published in the graphic novel “1001 Nights of Snowfall”. His next solo show will be at Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles from October 9 – 30, 2009.

Andrews currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY with his semi-faithful companion, Soybean. For more information visit Esao.com.

Sources: Jonathan Levin Gallery, Wikipedia, Pixel Surgeon

Jeremy Mayer: Typewriter Sculpture

August 7, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Today, I stumbled across the work of Palo Alto, California based artist Jeremy Mayer. Mayer disassembles old typewriters and reassembles them into full-scale, anatomically correct human figures and other sci-fi-ish bugs and animals.

Interested in typewriters since childhood, Mayer started working with the machines in 1994 while living in Iowa. With an interest in assembly in nature, he pays close attention to the strong trend in science and technology towards the emulation of natural systems.

Of his work, Mayer says “I think of the typewriter as a product of nature – it was designed by minds immersed in nature around them, and mimicked the curves, geometry, and physical processes abounding in nature. Though it is cold metal created by human hands, the typewriter is just as much a natural material as stone or wood. I concentrate on bringing this fascination with the raw material and interest in science and science fiction together in the subtleties of the human form.”

Each full scale sculpture uses 40 typewriters and takes about 1200 hours to assemble. What’s also amazing is that Mayer does not solder, weld, or glue any of the materials. He also creates charcoal drawings based on ideas about biotechnology and nanotechnology.

Mayer’s work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions across the US with a current show at the Device Gallery in San Diego. For more information on this unique artist, visit JeremyMayer.com.

John Trumbull: American Revolution

July 4, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Happy Fourth of July to all my American friends out there! Today, I thought it appropriate to write a post on a prominent artist during the time of the American Revolution.

One of the first important American painters, John Trumbull was born on June 6, 1756, in Lebanon, Connecticut. The son of a Governor, Trumbull aspired to be a painter against his father’s wishes and was sent instead to study at Harvard University. Trumbull graduated from Harvard in 1773 and in 1775 he enlisted as an aide-de-camp to George Washington, where he drew strategic maps for the Revolutionary War.

In 1777, Trumbull resigned to pursue his art studies in Boston. In 1780 he traveled to London and studied under Benjamin West, who encouraged him to paint images of the War of Independence and miniature portraits. After completing several more paintings in London, Trumbull returned home in 1789 to paint portraits of American generals and prominent figures.

Trumbull traveled to London again in 1794 where he married Sarah Hope Harvey in 1800. They returned to New York in 1804 but then moved back to England in 1808 where they remained until 1816. Trumbull was president of the American Academy of the Fine Arts from 1816 to 1825.

Later in life, Trumbull agreed to sell his paintings to Yale University in exchange for a lifetime annuity. He eventually settled in New Haven and published his well-known autobiography two years before his death on November 10, 1843. He was originally buried (with his wife) beneath the Yale University Art Gallery at the foot of his portrait of George Washington. In 1867, his collection and remains were moved to Street Hall. Part of the inscription on his tomb read “To his Country he gave his SWORD and his PENCIL”.

(The images above depict one million plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours.)

Sources: Jonathan Levin Gallery, Wikipedia, Pixel Surgeon

Sources: Currier Museum, Wikipedia, National Gallery of Art