Graham Little (1972)

British visual artist

Graham Little was born in Scotland and currently lives  and works in London.  He received his training at Duncan of  Jordanstone College in Scotland and did his MA in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths College, London. His drawing subjects are women – models from  old fashion magazines  like Harper`s and Queen as well as from contemporary publications. Most of his works are called as “Untitled”. On his drawings he mostly, if not only, focused on the models, placing them against a sketchy or undefined background. He also does sculptures. His artworks considered as totally  contemporary. They are characterised  with  intense detailing  what he does with coloured pencils and it takes many months to complete them. I looked through his artworks and I can’t say that they are many, usually artists have more. Even though I appreciate his  drawing skills, I find the images of the models as glamorous dolls and I cant find lot of feelings expressed or created and individuality.  They seem to be more about glamour and cloth and impeccable look of a woman. It is like with all this fashion magazines: you turn the page and you forget what was there. This artist is working in a very narrow niche which is fair enough, of course.

Untitled

Untitled

Elizabeth Peyton (1965)

American painter

Elizabeth Payton was born in Connecticut, USA. She studied  at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her main subject is a human face. She paints her portraits  with strong, “gestural” brushstrokes of diluted oil paint, she also uses charcoal and ink. Her critics say they her works are “shallow, celebrity obsessed ephemera”: she is well known for her portraits of rock starts, celebrities and European Monarchs and politicians.  I liked her portrait of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Payton`s  strokes technique is very visible on it and I love how she brings lot of emotions to the surface of the canvas with  such  large and quite rough brushstrokes.

Angela Merkel

John Lennon

Kehinde Wiley (1977)

American artist

Kehinde Wiley was born in 1972 in Los Angeles, California. Kehinde Wiley is very well known artist for his contemporary portraits  with  very colourful backgrounds. He is a master of fusing traditional techniques  with modern motifs and his artworks  have very realistic look.  Usually  his subjects are African Americans. He received his formal art training at the ART institute of San Francisco where he did his BFA, he continued his education at Yale University in its school of  Art. At  art school he draw lot of figure drawings and self portraits. He says that he gets inspired by European paintings  of  noblemen, royalty and  aristocrats. He draws his models in the poses of Old Masters paintings what results in  ‘a new original way or representation’’. However, personally, I have problem with that characteristic of being original as an artist.  As it is stated in the article :”Kehinde Wiley has a unique way of creating his paintings – he chooses pieces from legendary artists such as Rubens or Jacques-Louis David and then replaces their subjects with young black men”. To me, despite the fact that Wileys portraits are done in superb unquestionable technical skills, I don’t cognise the  idea of “borrowing” classical subjects poses as an amazing originality. I tend to consider it as a sort of a shortcut to originality and  to me it is a substitution and lacking of real original artistic thinking. I also join the opinion of Ben Davis: ”... to my eye Wiley has never been particularly  effective at capturing the innerlife of his sitters... his subjects have the indistinctly smoldering gaze familiar from  fashion ads..”

The Death of Chatterton, 2014; artslehigh.com

Barack Obama, 2018; kehindewiley.com

Reference list:

1.  “Surface beauty” by Eliza Williams, http://www.flashartonline.com
2. http://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com
3. “Artist of the week 115: Graham Little” by Skye Sherwin, 26 Nov 2010, The. guardian; http://www.theguardian.com
4. http://www.gagosian.com
5.  Www.guggenheim.com
6. ”Manhattan rhapsodies” by Andrew Purcell, 30 Jun 2009, The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com
7. “Angela Merkel`s Humanity captured in an Elizabeth Peyton Oil” by Melissa Eddy, July 23, 2017; The New York Times; http://www.nytimes.com
8. ”The New Face of Portrait Painting” by Dushko Petrovich, Feb 12, 2018; The New York Times; http://www.nytimes.com
9. http://www.kehindewiley.com
10. “Bad News: Kehinde Wiley`s Barack Obama is a bummer” by Ben Davis, Feb. 13, 2018; artnetnews; http://www.news.artnet.com