I admire many artists. I particularly like the Baroque artists. I like Rubens and the colours he used. Degas was wonderful drafting and composing his work. I like the impressionists because they changed art, colours and brushwork. Whenever I sketch works of these and other artists, I learn. I love to study the way they used cloth to reinforce the modeling or direction of form. They influence my use of colour and my brushwork. I also study and learn their compositions and how they achieved balance in their paintings.
Ann Hamilton - I admire her use of materials to communicate meaning in a visceral, kinaesthetic way
Jorge Queiroz - His work can be, simultaneously, vacuous and overflowing, figurative and abstract... I love how he creates tensions between meaning and ambiguity, always leaving the viewer hovering somewhat.
Ant Macari - His wall drawings are dense with meaning, complex semiotics/visual symbolism and craft.
But there are very few artists whose work I don't admire in some way...
I'm afraid I'm a bit boring in this vein...the Impressionists, particularly Lautrec, Renoir and Degas--Vincent is in there too, Rembrandt, Cezanne, a few living artists such as Daniel Greene, Chuck Close.
Artemisia Gentileschi - a classical painter from the 1500s who, interestingly, was not only wonderfully skilled but also a woman. I greatly admire many classical painters for their skill in times when things must have been much more difficult for artists, when materials and tools were more primitive, and anatomical knowledge was not as thorough as today's, and they worked by candlelight and without the aid of things like photographs to learn from.
Gustav Dore - Like Ray Harryhausen and H.P. Lovecraft, I fell in love with Dore's drawings and paintings and the sheer force of light and shade and the strength of form in his depictions. Much of my concept and draft work takes on this Dore-like quality, simply because it is so powerful and effective in conveying action and environment. I think his painting "Andromeda" has to be one of my all-time favourites for the lighting and drama captured in it.
Alan Lee - I love Norse mythology and Tolkien's works, and Alan has not only made many wonderful pieces of art on those subjects but his style has such a wistful and far-away feel to it, I can't help but adore it. His attention to detail and use of colours is exquisite. What really inspires me about his paintings is that they seem to 'flow' effortlessly, landscapes flow into a real sense of distance, or darkness flows out of caverns or shadows and into the scene, and the heroes and creatures of his paintings are caught up in it. It is one thing to become so accomplished in watercolours as to be able to make photographic-looking paintings, but equally as impressive to use the medium's natural flow to create an enveloping mystic feel that really embodies the subject.
Yoshitaka Amano - the way in which Amano creates such beautiful flowing forms from a bare minimum of pattern, colour and line fascinates me. He also works on mythology and his interpretations and the sheer feel of freedom in his work have been a great inspiration to mine.
Dominique Louis - is an artist currently working for Pixar. I haven't encountered too many working pastel artists... but Dominique's art not only combines a masterful command of pastel technique, but magical kinds of mood and bold uses of colour I really marvel at. His concept work for the film "Ratatouille" is superb.   | | |
Artists that influence my painting are Rothko, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Bonnard, O'Keefe, Diego Rivera, Frida, Oaxacan artists of the 1990s, the weavers and folk artists of Oaxaca and the prehispanic Mayans and Zapotec sculptors. Most of the painters mentioned use color in ways I admire. Some also use symbols. The ancient Mayas and Zapotecs wrote in hieroglyphs, not unlike the symbols of the Tarot, another ancient system.
I love Dali, and Tom Wesselmann for obvious reasons.
Arthur Shilling, the Group of Seven, Arte Povera, Hans Hofmann, Rembrandt.
Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keefe, Raushenberg, Conrad
The list is long. i love the line and perseverance of Alice Neel, and the thought behind Richard Serra, and the soul searching of Anselm Keifer... to begin with.
The artist community is so vast and I think we inspire each other all the time. I really couldn't pick out one person who inspired me specifically.
Australian Artists are - Margaret Preston, Ian Fairweather, Arthur Boyd, Wendy Stavrianos, John Martin, John Risley and Rosalie Gascgoine.
German Expressionists - Max Beckmann, Joseph Boyes and Gerhard Richter.
Matisse, Kandinsky and Picasso.
Paterson Ewan - and the group of seven artists from Canada.
Each of these have influenced in different ways - from their views of the Australian landscapes and landscape in general > the use of recycled materials and then the assemblage process. A mentor in John Martin who has continued to make me question my way of working.
To the masters that have endured and captured a time and place.
Having spent 12 months in Canada - the group of seven and artists like Paterson Ewan spoke to me about how my own landscape is intrinsically linked to my way of capturing my own time and place.
I have a terrible memory for names but I get all sorts of motivations from contemporary art I see in shows around the EU. Mostly I am interested in painters. My big heroes alive and not so alive include Edward Hopper, Picasso, Rothko, Stanley Spencer, Giotto, Titian, Watteau, Paula Rego, Francis Bacon, De Chirico, Goya. But really the list keeps changing.
The first was Michelangelo Buonarotti who inspired me to appreciate composition. Then came Pablo Picasso and he gave me food for thought on overcoming the difficulties of being an artist. Salvador Dali opened my mind to opening minds. Max Ernst threw down the glove as a challenge for giving life to the "white space". Benvenuto Cellini's book, "My Life" was the cornerstone for me. His example was inspiring and he showed me that art is life itself and how we must protect the skill we have against all opposition or malicious mind. Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison saved me from myself and showed the me the path away from self consumption as creativity must be treasured. And finally to this list comes Bob Marley who wrote philosophy and gave it music too.
I admire many old masters such as Rembrandt, Titien, Velazquez, Vermeer and many many others of that era. My eyes are opened by the Impressionists and my heart is made stronger through the amazing works of all the great women artists such as; Cassatt, Beaux, O'Keefe, Morisot, Vigé-Lebrun, De Lempicka, Grandma Moses, Chicago, Delaunay, Fini, Liebovitz, Laurencin, Kahloe and so many more.
My work is strongly influence by all of the above but stylistically, Rembrandt is very close to my heart.
Beatrice Potter - she loved her characters, loved art because it came alive - she saw through children's eyes and she had a purpose in life, although I don't believe she knew it. It was her heart just to love what she did as a artist and God did the rest with circumstances around her life. |
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