Artist (2/21): Chuck Close

I first saw Close’s work at the VMFA during his exhibition, which ran from July 10 – November 14, 2010. His work hits you in the face from the moment you see it, large scale paintings that can stretch across entire walls. His work breaks free of traditional painting techniques and standards becoming something outside what one would normally consider a painting. Up close, the viewer would be hard pressed to see something other than a collection of nonrepresentational boxes. But at a distance, each box comes together to make a stunning, surprisingly detailed portrait. When looking at Close’s pieces, I am inspired to move outside the bounds of what I consider “traditional photography” into something I consider “photo based art” or "photo art."

“Chuck Close, born July 5, 1940, Monroe, Washington, U.S., American artist noted for his highly inventive techniques used to paint the human face. He is best known for his large-scale, Photo-Realist portraits.
Close began taking art lessons as a child and at age 14 saw an exhibition of Jackson Pollak’s abstract paintings, which helped inspire him to become a painter. He studied at the University of Washington School of Art (B.A., 1962) and at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture (B.F.A., 1963; M.F.A., 1964), and in 1964 he won a Fulbright scholarship to study in Vienna. While teaching at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1965–67), he gradually rejected the elements of Abstract Expressionism that had initially characterized his work.”

"Chuck Close Biography - Biography.com."Biography.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 21 Feb 2011. <http://www.biography.com/articles/Chuck-Close-9251491>.

“…I think the problem with the arts in America is how unimportant it seems to be in our educational system.” Chuck Close

Brown, Jeffrey. "Conversation: Chuck Close, Christopher Finch | Art Beat | PBS News Hour | PBS." PBS.org. MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, 02 Jul 2010. Web. 21 Feb 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/07/conversation-chuck-close-christopher-finch.html>.

“There are no commissioned portraits. These are images that really matter, and I want to commit them to memory and the only way I can really do that is to flatten them out, scan them, make these drawings and paintings and prints. And then they enter my memory bank in a different sort of way.” Chuck Close

Brown, Jeffrey. "Conversation: Chuck Close, Christopher Finch | Art Beat | PBS News Hour | PBS." PBS.org. MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, 02 Jul 2010. Web. 21 Feb 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/07/conversation-chuck-close-christopher-finch.html>

PHIL/ FINGERPRINT, 2008
Screenprint in 25 colors
50.5 x 38 inches

SELF-PORTRAIT, 2004
19 Color handprinted Ukiyo-e woodcut
28.5 x 22.75 inches

LYLE, 2003
149-color silkscreen
62.25 x 54 inches

SELF PORTRAIT/SPITBITE/WHITE ON BLACK, 1997
Aquatint, 20.5 x 15.75 inches

All photos from http://www.gregkucera.com/close.htm

Interview

Gallery 1

Gallery 2

Artist's Website

Artist (2/7): Julie Mehretu

I literally umped when I first saw Mehretu's work. She spends so much time designing each individual piece that they very nearly become living, breathing organisms.  Her work has, already, greatly impacted me because we're both motivated by architecture, city infrastructure, and utilize their designs in our own work.  Unlike my work, however, she works primarily with paint, which I have yet to implement in my creative process.


Julie Mehretu was born in 1970 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She studied at University Cheik Anta Diop, Dakar (1990–91), earning a BA from Kalamazoo College, Michigan (1992), and an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (1997). She was a resident of the CORE Program, Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1997-98) and the AIR Program at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2001). Mehretu's paintings and drawings refer to elements of mapping and architecture, achieving a calligraphic complexity that resembles turbulent atmospheres and dense social networks. Architectural renderings and aerial views of urban grids enter the work as fragments, losing their real-world specificity and challenging narrow geographic and cultural readings. The paintings' wax-like surfaces—built up over weeks and months in thin translucent layers—have a luminous warmth and spatial depth, with formal qualities of light and space made all the more complex by Mehretu's delicate depictions of fire, explosions, and perspectives in both two and three dimensions. Her works engage the history of nonobjective art—from Constructivism to Futurism—posing contemporary questions about the relationship between utopian impulses and abstraction. Among Mehretu's awards are the Berlin Prize (2007), from the American Academy in Berlin; a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award (2005); and the American Art Award from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2005). Her work has appeared in major exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007); Detroit Institute of Arts (2006); Walker Art Museum, Minneapolis (2003); and Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo (2003), among others. Mehretu has participated in the Sydney Biennale (2006); Carnegie International (2004); Bienal de São Paulo (2004); Whitney Biennial (2004); and the Istanbul Biennial (2003). Julie Mehretu lives and works in Berlin.

"Art 21 . Julie Mehretu . Biography . Documentary Film | PBS." Art 21. PBS, 2009. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/julie-mehretu/>.

“...this wall drawing is about an experiment, about taking a blank space and playing with it to try to create something else that doesn't have the loaded weight that a painting has. “

Mehretu, Julie. Intervew by Binkley, David. 28 Mar 2003. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/passages/mehretu-conversation.html>.

“My initial impulse and investigation was to try and develop, through drawing, a language that could communicate different types of narratives and build a cityscape, each mark having a character, a modus operandi of social behavior. As they continued to grow and develop in the drawing I wanted to see them layered; to build a different kind of dimension of space and time into the narratives. “

Mehretu, Julie. Intervew by Binkley, David. 28 Mar 2003. Web. 9 Feb 2011. <http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/passages/mehretu-conversation.html>.

Julie Mehretu, “Excerpt (Suprematist Evasion),” 2003, ink and acrylic on canvas, 32 x 54”. 

Julie Mehretu, “Excerpt (Riot),” 2003, ink and acrylic on canvas, 32 x 54”.  

Julie Mehretu, “Excerpt (Battle Track),” 2003, ink and acrylic on canvas, 32 x 54”.  

Julie Mehretu, “Excerpt (Molotov Cocktail),” 2003, ink and acrylic on canvas, 32 x 54”.

Interview

Gallery

Website