Cultural Sculpture

This sculpture dates back to the thirteenth century, however, the exact time of it's creation is shrouded in ambiguity. The sculpture is Roman in origin and conceptually deals with the culture's mythology.  I love the haunted nuance to the mother dog's expression and such fine details as the ribs straining against the cool stone skin. I also am intrigue by the stylized texture of the mother dogs neck: a necklace? Scruffy fur? It add some interest to the piece visually, and provides some food for thought. 

Cool, inspiring sculpture

This is a sculpture by the contemporary American artist Takeshi Murata titled "Melted 3D"; delicately crafted from a metal that creates the illusion of a perpetual fluid movement (or melting). I like the simpilicity of the design of the sculpture because it emphasizes the cool "melting" special effect. If Murata had been more flashy with the other aspects of the sculpture, I feel as if the sculpture would be too busy -- he balances simplicity and complexity. Additionally, I aplaud the tecnhical know-how it must have taken to create such a piece.

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?

Ryan De La Hoz

Another post prompted by Juxtapoz, the artist in question being Ryan De La Hoz (I "discovered" him through an article in the magazine). What strikes me about his work is, beneath the surface, the depth of intelligent meaning. Every aspect of the work is a symbol. His art is very grounded in the culture of today, and yet at the same time timeless. For example, with tie-dye, De La Hoz says "while it is now considered kitschy by some, it was once emblematic of a movement that defied corporate culture among many other things. I am interested in the way motifs change meaning over time as they are reappropriated."