Shahzia Sikander

Shahzia Sikander was born in 1969 in Lahore, Pakistan. Her work presents a mysterious feeling.

It is hard to tell this smog like thing. It may look like some clouds. But I can see a fiere-looking thing( face?) standing out of the picture in the middle of the drawing.  The artist did a nice job of shading, apprently.

This drawing presents a man surrounding by assault rifles like AK47s or something like these. It seems that the man is quite fond of  meditation, which did not give much attention toward these weapons. The whole picture looked like a whired one .

I cannot figure out what these objects are. These look like flowers if bird view is used, or another possibililty, a lot of sun umbrellas near the sea shore or it could be a part of the sunset process. The colors vary from light red to nearly dark black, which is quite random.

Serse

There is not much information about this artist. All I know is that this person is Italian who was born in 1952.

The artist did not use too many colors in this piece of work, however, it looks realistic since the creator used different densities in various areas subtly. The artist is very good at shading (colors of the sea, clouds, sky) and I really appreciate the effect that the sun lilght went through the cloud. Besides, the artist did a nice job of these curvy profiles, which illustrates the movement of the sea.

Unlike the fierce sea illustrated above, the snowy mountain keeps still, which forms a strong comparison.  Compared with the previous one, the sky in this picture is a bit simpler. However, I think the mountain is the real hard part for drawing due to its irregular shape and the subtle changes between the interface of scarce snow and the mountain surface.

I cannot really tell what this picture is. It seems that some people get involved in the drawing or it just shows the burning period of some firewood. The artist used warm colors like red, orange at the top part then switched to dark cold complement colors, which forms a strong visual impact.

Amelie Von Wulffen

Amelie Von Wulffen was born in 1966 in Breitenbrunn, Germany. Now she lives and works in Berlin and Vienna.

This picture presents a lively garden and three gorgeous girls. The garden is wonderful, as can be seen from the outside. The application of green and red is quite a kind of visual stimulation, which makes the whole painting a noticeable one. Besides the profile of the redhead, there are two semitransparent girls at the right bottom corner. The thing I admire most is the profound technique which renders these two floating above the background.

This one uses the same technique just like the first one. The only difference is that the girls are replaced by a formidable looking character. The painting shows a lake side view. One thing that is interesting is about the golf in the middle of the air, which replaces the normal sun. The whole painting uses a lot of dark colors which gives out a sad feeling.

This picture shows an imaginary woman which enables me to associate with a bird due to these feather like things around her. The creator used a lot of colors that makes the figure unrealistic. In general, the drawing gives me a messy feeling, which may be resulted from these feathers and numerous colors or may be that is the destination the creator wants to achieve.

Pavel Pepperstein

It is said that Pavel Pepperstein is one of the most influential artist of Russia's new generation. He is also one of those founders of an art group called Inspection Medical Hermeneutics.

The picture shows that two men are fighting each other fiercely. At first glance, I do not think it  is a simple picture but contains some political meanings. My personally feeling is that these two men probably standed for two different countries which were engaged in the war during that time. There are not many colors contained in the drawing, so I guess the artist may want to express something else.

Intuitively, I thought it was a snowy background. However, the artist did not use too much shading effect to present the sonw directly. Instead, the artist used these footprints to indicate the snowy ground, which is really subtle. The dark heavy edge makes the ground three dimensional, which is also confusing at the same time. I am very fond of these trunks and smoggy atmosphere. I just cannot figure out what are these characters doing. It seems that the right wants to lead the other one who appears to be very reluctant obviously.

I have no idea about who the man is.  Pale face, bald head, sharp eyes, he reminds me of Voldemort in Harry Potter at first sight. I think the artist successfully created an impressive character which is relevant to these negative words like cold, brutal, mean, greedy and so on. At least that is my subjective feelilng.

Robin Rhode

Robin Rhode is a South African artist and lives in Germany now. The artist used a new perspective of art which is quite different from those I saw in the past.
I think this kind of artwork is really unique and amazing as well. If we only consider the person lying on the ground and ignore the rest part, it appears to be meaningless or even silly. However, when the artist combined these two parts into an integrated one, it is quite interesting. The lying person is in the middle of the air, which is motional instead of a rest one.  The same principle applies to the other two pictures. A man, some leaves and a willow, three isolated parts, begin to interact when they are put together. However, the third one is quite opposite to the first one, which enables the man to be the rest part, whereas the stonelike objects have a falling motion.





Chloe Piene

Chloe Piene is an American artist having German and Jewish parentage who is known for skeletal and morbid drawings.

This picture depicts human skull anatomies. I am quite fond of this livling anatomy.  It is interesting that the picture remains some organs of a living person such as eyes, ears, hairs and muscles arounnd the woman's neck, which renders her vivid. It remains me of a kind of blue x-ray glasses that can penetrate partial human bodies in a movie. I also like some details like these teeth and the nosebone that make the drawing a precise one.

Compare with the one I mentioned above, this one appears to be somewhat appalling because one of the characters is a mother who is usually viewed a caretaker becomes a creepy skeleton. What is worse, the mother is not a pure skeleton but looks like some kind of living zombie due to partial skin and her gesture and the child is definitely not a lovely one. Therefore, I am not fond of this one emotionally but I have to admit it has these unique traits.

The creature depicted in the picture looks exactly like a legendary unicorn except a redundant horn and wings or it can be recognized as a common mule simply. One thing I find a little weired is the lengths of its feet.  I feel the creature is standing on an inclined surface and it makes sense if the thing behind it can be regared as a trunk. This drawing does not contain obvious shadows like these illustrated above and as a result, it looks less three dimensional.                                                                                     

Jockum Nordström

Jockum Nordström is a swedish artist who is best known for his collages, drawings and paintings as well.

This drawing probably depicts one of scenarios of a horrible movie making process. It is easy to see a black fuzzy claw is reaching toward a woman, which terrifies her. There is a chimp-like man standing outside the door, wants to get access to her. Perhaps there is a third character-- the figure who has an octopus head. There are two things that confuse me. First, why are these people and objects all covered in blue while the white floor still exists between the stage and them? Second, why are these colors inside the door all vivid whereas these things outside the door consist of black and white only?

The drawing illustrates the scenario of hunting at an ancient age, possibly. It seems that the man standing above is calling on his hound to make preparation for a hunting. Another man holding a shaft, is about to stab a deer near by. Athough the drawing is a plain type without too many decorations, the whole one presents me a natural sense.

It is likely that this picture shows the situation inside an office. The very dark frames of these chairs enable these things to stand out, which is a sort of three dimension. Another thing I like is the colour of these desks. It is so natural that I may regard these desks as a part of a picure which is in a less hd form. However, I am not fond of the background much compared with the things I have mentioned before. Because it is so vague that I cannot exactly tell where the light is from.

Elizabeth Peyton

Elizabeth Peyton is an American painter living in Long Island, New York. She got some attention in the mid 1990s. Here are some of her drawings.

At first glance, I thought this painting was a picture when it was not enlarged. The woman gets her eyes and mouth widely open as if something startles her. The black background gives me a kind of depressed feeling but it is helpful for the light effect. My favourite part is the lilght.  I can tell exactly where the light is coming from since there is a kind of strong comparison between the left light part and right shadow part of her neck.  Here is another thing that I just wondering the part of her right arm. Where is it?

This picture depicts a skinny man. The gesture of this man makes him look like a professional of magic,  especially his hands which give me a kind of tricky feeling. Just like the painting displayed above, the artist pays much attention on the effect of light. Again, not only can I see the direction of the light, but also can I tell some planes that contains different lighting values. One example is the right and left sides of the top part of his trousers.

From this angle, we can observe the partial structure of a room. It seems that the artist really cares about the light effect which can be reflected by the blue door, the black floor and the top left corner of the room. I would say that the artist must spend more time on the left side of the painting compared with the rest as you can see the shelves and books are just like the detailed drawing we did in the class.  Another thing is about the colors. Without two colourful doors and black and yellow floors, the whole painting would be much more tedious.

                                              

  

Paul Noble

Paul Noble is a British artist who comes from the village Dilston, Northumberland.

It seems that this drawing depicts a part of a small village. The whole painting  gives me a kind of tranquil sense becasue there are no people, animal or anything lively. I am fond of the pool shown in the picture and I think it is not easy to draw this "mirror" vividly because it needs a good understanding of the techniques of symmetry and overall mix colour effects.  We can see certain things clearly like trunks, walls of houses although the overall background is a little dark and vague.

We can clearly see that the whole area of drawing is divided into four identical parts just like the technique we used in class and the base of this huge object consists of immense rectangular stones which enables me to recall the practice "using rectangles and squares to fill the positive and negative spaces". There is a main entrance leading to the inside of this tower like building. I cannot really figure out what it is, but the thing on the top makes it look like an ancient sturcture of religion or worship.

Do you see these dark trenches and the lights above? At first sight, I think these strange looking structures are the superficial entrances of the secretive underground buildings. The light coloured  ground and plants suggest a desert area to me. There is a person standing in the middle of the two thick stones. I cannot say exactly what he is doing right now. Maybe he regards the place as a urinal.

Memed Erdener

Here are some drawings of Memed Erdener.

This drawing depicts a hilarious woman. We can find the outlines are very clear and there are multiple colours which make this character quite vivid. It seems that the woman likes to play with that catapult and I think it makes her a little childish. The background is vague and  dark, compared with this figure. The shadows are natural and it is easy to see where the light is coming from.  I have not figured out what the background is. It looks like some ground mud, or maybe that is the atmosphere when the dusk is coming.

Who can tell me the meaning of these Arabic like words? The drawing looks like a picture of  anatomy which shows all of arteries and veins of this decapitated person. The artist deliberately made the drawing disproportional. A helicopter is removing the huge head and there are two tanks near these words. I guess the artist is against wars and that may be a reason to creat this picture.

This one is a little weird. A pipe is connected to each human's head and there are three dashboards on the surfaces of the machine. The most strange thing is that the machine also has a brain. It seems that an advanced intelligent machine is used to measure human brains. But  why does it need  an operating handle if it has a brain?

Robyn O’neil

The artist I want to talk about today is Robyn O’neil who is from Omaha. I found that she likes creating drawings with winter backgrounds which are usually related to a group of cult-like radical people. In general, the general atmosphere is pretty dark, presenting a kind of hopeless feeling.

A group of crazy people are fighting with each other and it seems that some of them are injured or may be even killed. The only audience, an owl, is staring at them indifferently. The thing I like most is its atmosphere. Chilly snow covered ground, dark sky and deciduous trees all present a kind of desperation. I think these are the most successful elements.

This time, the focus is not the environment any more. Apparently, the main characters in the drawing are these people. For some reasons, I have a negative feeling toward these people. Maybe I dislike their dark uniforms, or their gestures. Any way, for me, it presents an evil, cold blooded, well-organized,cunning and stubborn group.

Here is an interesting device. It looks like a combination of the wheel of a unicycle and a part of automobile. I think it must have a unique sense of ride. However, I wonder how can it  deal with the problem of sight block? At least I cannot tolerate a bold black line while I am operating this machine.
Perhaps I am wrong because the aim of existence of this drawing is to enlighten us rather than invent something real.

Trenton Doyle Hancock

Trenton Doyle Hancock is an American fine artist whose hometown is Oklahoma City. In general, his drawings are affected by abstract expressionism and surrealism. Here are some of his paintings below.

It seems that the lion called " the exalted king of the forest" is announcing something important to its civilians of the animal kingdom. The background is pretty dark and there are only some trees that can be seen.  I am not certain about the explanation, perhaps because of the night time, or the forthcoming dark ruling time, or the style of the artist.

This one depicts several volcanos. It seems that people do not live peacefully with each other.  It is not hard to see that hundreds of them are anxious to get into these volcanos. As a result, lot of them are vaporized with the volcanic ash. Maybe the artist figures out an imaginary way of committing suicide.

This picture shows us a combination of a person (This guy looks like the artist himself) and some plants. At the firsl glance, I associate it with a weird spider or a cyborg in some science fiction movies, but not that kind of advanced. If you compare this guy with the ruins on the ground, you can see this  figure has a huge size. I think this one may well perform a classic evil character in a sci fi movie.

Well, these are the things that I want to share with all of you today.