The five artists I chose are Andrea Zittel, Katharina Grosse, Jack Whitten, Abigail DeVille, and Firelei Baez because I was drawn in by their choice of mediums and how they use art to communicate different themes through their work:
Zittel treats her design as art, and I separate the two, but I definitely related to her more. She is what some people will call a designer because she uses things that design principles like the grid and the idea of wanting something to look perfect based, but art does not allow that and that’s one idea behind the shelves she creates. Based on principles of design like using a grid for everything, designers have little to no room to experiment. This is because we are creating for an entire public and not ourselves, and Zittel makes a point that you can’t make something that doesn’t want to be perfect, perfect. The idea of perfect is something I force into my work, and I am inspired by Zittel, and would want to stray away from my polished portraiture.
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| Works 2005 – Andrea Zittel, 2020cardboard and spray paint, July 13 – August 21, 2020 |
Grosse's work is inspired by colors “in relationship to our crystalized and materialized world” (Grosse), meaning when color is introduced in work it is not as important as the object in a painting, for example. She describes color as a female in the 17thcentury where it is treated as less intelligent or not as important or dominant as the concept of an object or line which she says is the male and is more important. She separates color from the object and makes these very colorful and vibrant paintings, that make viewers stop and think about the colors and less about the object color is typically confined in. I would like to incorporate more color in my artwork, but I’m scared to. Grosse inspires me to think of color as an element of its own.
The third artist I chose is Jack Whitten whose work is inspired by African American Diaspora and uses his abstract tesserae paintings as memorials to black heroes and icons who contributed a lot to society like Maya Angelou, Muhammad Ali, and Barbara Jordon to name a few. He faces aging as one of his biggest challenges, and at one time even faced illness while creating Six Kinky Strings: For Chuck Berry. This inspires me to be So, his life experiences and stories have a massive influence on his work. A theme this artist addresses in making his art is not treating art as a narrative and more like a memorial. This is similar to Abigail DeVille.
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Jack Whitten Jack’s Jacks - Jack Whitten, 29 Mar – 1 Sep 2019 Tesserae |
DeVille is a younger more recent artist whose sculpture Light of Freedom 2022, was inspired by the Black Lives Matter Movement. She spoke more about the inspiration behind her sculpture which is black history, black lives today and in the past, and the unspoken and unheard stories of black lives. One challenge I feel she has and many black artists like Whitten is getting society to change and creating hope for future black artists. This inspires me to teach or want to teach other artists, not just black artists about the beauty within all of us.
Firelei Baez work is an artist I am familiar with, I love her work and attention to detail and using the body to beautify things and people labeled as abject, which means something bad presented to a maximum degree, in order to demonize someone or something, like how Linnaeus scientific illustrations did to dark-skinned people, or to put fear into someone to “civility” like the Ciguapa. She inspires me to portray black women the way I do in my artwork, as goddesses and queens instead of single mothers, baby mamas, and crazy. I think that is one of the challenges, turning something that is meant to demonize and create fear into something beautiful, which she does, her work is amazing and gorgeous, but I honestly still wouldn’t want to encounter a Ciguapa.
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Ciguapa Pantera (to all the goods and pleasures of this world) - Firelei Baez, 2015 Acrylic and ink on paper, 241.3 x 165.1 cm |
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