Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2024 i Artists Magazine

GOING FOR GOLD When I think back to the Summer Olympic Games, in Paris, and all the sensational athleticism on display there, I easily recall the joy of watching beloved champions achieve new levels of triumph. Whose jaw didn’t drop when watching Simone Biles defy gravity? But what’s so much fun about the Games is that we can also fall into a story about an athlete whom we’ve never heard of before, and then quickly find ourselves vigorously cheering them on—like we’ve been lifelong fans. It’s in this spirit of competition that we happily present in this issue the 2024 Artists to Watch winners. The goal of this competition, now in its third year, is to celebrate emerging artists who demonstrate both technical skill and unique qualities of self-expression. Among…

Go Live Working with a model is obviously quite different than painting from a photo. When you have a live, three-dimensional reference in front of you, you get a better sense of proportions, movement and the subtleties of anatomy. The direct connection can help bring more life and expression to your work. Plus, interacting with a model can spark creativity and bring a fresh energy that you might not get from working with a static image alone. Learning Curve • Seek out a friend or family member as a modeling session trial run. • During the rehearsal walkthrough, be sure to ask your model for feedback so you know how to adjust or adapt moving forward. Work It Here are three common options for working with a model: • Bring…

Abstract/ Experimental FIRST PLACE Angela Tang Shanghai, China I wanted to express the existence of time, but because it doesn’t have shape and color, I imagined a scene in which a swirl wipes away objects such as flowers and bricks. The swirl, located in the lower part of the painting, and the objects, located in the upper portion, are unseen. I wanted to create a sense of urgency and fragmentation, coupled with the swirl. I determined that an intricate Gothic clock would best represent time, which I drew with colored pencils and then cut into pieces. I arranged the pieces into a shape that represents the swirl and the passage of time. The title of the work underscores the theme of a fleeting moment and evokes a sense of urgency.…

IS ARTWORK THAT’S CREATED FOR A SPECIFIC LOCATION PROTECTED FOR ALL TIME? The work of fine artists in the U.S.—and in much of the rest of the world—is protected by law from being altered or destroyed without the artists’ permission. In the U.S., that law is the Visual Artists Rights Act, enacted in 1990. Still, artwork may not be as protected as artists would like. There are no U.S. statutory requirements that art objects be repaired if damaged by the elements or from the passage of time. And, particularly for works of public art that are identified by the artists as “site-specific,” no law compels the site owners to maintain the sites just as they had been when installed. WHAT IS SITE-SPECIFIC ART? The Museum of Modern Art defines site-specific…

Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) was one of the most important figurative artists of the early-20th century. Modigliani was born in Livorno, Italy, where he attended drawing and painting classes while taking an avid interest in Renaissance art. When he was 11, his mother wrote, “He behaves like a spoiled child, but he does not lack intelligence. We shall have to wait and see what is inside this chrysalis. Perhaps an artist?” His long-term health was compromised during childhood, when he was beset first by typhoid and then, more consequentially, by tuberculosis. In his teens, Modigliani studied art in both Florence and Venice. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he showed little interest in landscape painting, preferring instead to concentrate on the nude. He moved to Paris in 1906 and fell in with…

“Mark-making is an essential part of watercolor painting, and I use many different tools—palette knifes, credit cards, toothbrushes and, of course, watercolor brushes of all sorts. One brush type I come back to all the time is the long round by Princeton. They come in many sizes in the Velvet Touch series, as well as a smaller selection in the Aqua Elite series. Like any round brush, they hold an ample amount of water, but the longer brush fibers come to a long point that’s great for precision work. I can use it to paint branches, boat rigging, power lines and other similar linework without switching to a rigger brush.” MICHAEL HOLTER ARTIST “My butcher’s tin palette is something I use any time I’m painting in acrylic. I like how easy…

In 2014, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) hosted an exhibition of portraiture by contemporary painter Daniel Sprick. A longtime patron of the artist and the founder/CEO of Colorado’s Museum of Outdoor Arts (MOA), Cynthia Madden Leitner, had this to say of the paintings in that show: “They were so lifelike it was as if the portraits were having conversations with one another in the gallery.” Ten years later, a new comprehensive show, “Fleeting Presence: The Liminal Art of Daniel Sprick,” enjoyed an extended run at The Madden Museum of Art, in Greenwood Village, Colo. The museum was founded by Leitner’s parents, the late Marjorie and John W. Madden, who were early Sprick collectors. The exhibition presents dozens of the artist’s paintings—across multiple genres—most of them completed within the last decade.…

Illinois PAULA MODERSOHNBECKER: I AM ME THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO THROUGH JANUARY 12, 2025 ARTIC.EDU During her short life, German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) radically charted her own path, exploring the intimate and singular aspects of the feminine experience in a bold style that foreshadowed Expressionism. Her innovative style, which emphasized expression over representation, placed her at the forefront of experimental art in Europe at the turn of the century. The artist is known especially for her many self-portraits, including the first nude self-portraits known to have been painted by a woman. Her striking body of work, which includes more than 700 paintings, roughly 1,400 drawings and 11 prints—made across only 10 years—are frank portrayals of childhood and the lived bodily experience of motherhood, pregnancy and old age. Despite…

Drawing the human face is an act of devotion, a practice that transcends mere technique and enters the realm of the sacred. It’s not laborious work, but it is a labor of love—a journey into the very essence of what it means to be human. There’s no easy path to mastering the art of portraiture, no shortcuts to capturing the complexity of a face, but this challenge is where the beauty lies. For me, the human face is the most profound subject one can study. Each face is a universe of shapes, lines and spaces, an ever-changing landscape of emotion and experience. No two faces are the same, and even the same face—in different lighting or different moods—offers an endless array of stories waiting to be told. There’s no such…

“I believe painting is a language and, as with any language, there are two parts: There’s the message and there’s presentation,” says EC (Casey) Baugh, an artist celebrated for his powerful work that uses a hybrid of traditional and contemporary artistic principles, techniques and interpretations. “A musician can communicate emotions and stories through sound waves tugging at your heart,” Baugh continues. “A writer can use words to convey the horrors of war and light up our imagination. Similarly, a dancer’s twists, turns and rhythms can make us feel the depths of humanity. And painters use mud of various colors to absorb and reflect light so that the viewer sees the illusion of form. A sunset over crashing ocean waves. A shimmering, starry night thickly painted over a dimly lit city.…

As far back as the 10th century C.E., monastic scribes across Europe created the historic illuminated manuscripts that are so treasured today. Historians now know those early artisans weren’t the original creators of the texts and illustrations in the manuscripts they produced. Rather, they rewrote and redrew their material from ancient sources. In his book Medieval Craftsmen, Scribes and Illuminators, Christopher de Hamel notes there’s evidence that many of those manuscripts were, in fact, traced from one copy to another on semitransparent parchment and vellum stock. Today, parchment and vellum continue to thrive as working materials for artists, but they’ve been joined by a variety of other translucent media. Tracing paper, bond paper, Mylar, YUPO, acetate, glass and Lucite have now gained credibility with the contemporary art world as valid…

TAP INTO YOUR GREATNESS If you could use some insightful encouragement and direction on your creative journey, turn to Kristy Gordon as your motivational compass. In Become a Great Artist (Page Street Publishing; available November 5), the artist, author and adjunct professor at New York Academy of Art—and an Artists Magazine featured artist, contributor and competition juror—expertly guides you through the process of overcoming self-doubt, dreaming big and creating authentic work. She also instructs you on how to research the art world, build an arsenal of ideas and pitch yourself to galleries and collectors. Let Gordon gently and knowledgeably steer you forward as you commit (or recommit) to your artistic path in 2025—and beyond. Good luck! Back to the Drawing Board Meet the finalists of the Strokes of Genius 16th…