Ceramic work

Yosaky Yammamoto's work manages to be both whimsical and unsettling. Observe his sculpture carefully, what concrete aspect instigates such an inference? It's all in the face. Like a mask, the deceivingly apathetic expression cloaks a bottomless well of a mystery. In otherwords, what lies beneath the surface of his work is up to your own imagination. Like monsters in the dark (that's really just a coat on a hanger or something). That's what I like about his work. The enigmatic-ness (I'm pretty sure that's not an actual word...oh well).

Art with text

Just admire how incredibly detailed this is. It's a page from the artistically renowned illuminated manuscript "The Book of Kells". Imagery and writing merge together into a seemless whole. And I'm pretty sure it would still be that way even if I could read the language written in the book.

Second Artist that inspires me

For the second artist that inspires me, I'll do someone more contemporary: Agostino Arrivebene. I found out about this guy in Juxtapoz magazine. I could stare at his work for hours in pure wonder, and that's not even at the original painting. Technically he employs classical italian techniques with his own subtle mannerisms--he mixes his own colors and makes his own medium. You can tell. Additionally, content wise he does this reall surrealistic figurative work rich with allegory. I've attached a picture of one of his painting's below.

Two Artists that Inspire me (number one)

First on the list  [of artists that inspire me] is...(drum roll)... Renoir! That is, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (yeah that's a bit of a mouthful...or keyboard full)  if just the surname isn't enough for identification (which I know it is). The reason he makes it on this list is his forward-thinking and, if I do say so myself, beautiful use of color. He picked up on hues in the human skin that had traditional-slanted critiques spitting on his face (figuratively) and the more open-minded viewers gasping in awe (this is not necessarily figurative). I mean, sure, the colors may be a little exaggerated, but then why is there such thing as hyperbole in writing? Exaggeration has a way of enhancing somethings reality. And besides, exaggerated or not, it's a scientific fact that their are thousands of different colors in skin tone. Not just one. Even the old masters-- whose use of color is comparably less, well, colorful than Renoirs'-- knew it.Well, maybe some of them were just jumping on the bandwagon of toned-down and even simplified color, but some of them knew.  In Leonardo Da Vinci's notes he makes note (as is expected seeing as it's his notes) that different surfaces pick up different hues -- for instance, shadows on a white surface are predominantly blue. Now doesn't this sound like something Renoir would say?