Frank Gehry

 

Frank Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg, on the 28^th February 1929 in Toronto,. He moved with his family to Los Angeles as a teenager in 1947 and became a U.S citizen. Franks father changed the family’s name to Gehry when the family immigrated. Frank Gehry was uncertain on what to do for his career and as a teenager he drove a delivery truck to support himself while studying a range of courses at the los Angeles City College. He took his first architecture course without knowing where it might lead and became so fascinated with the possibilities of the arts. Frank Gehry won a scholarship to the university of Southern California and then graduated in 1945 with a degree in architecture.

Frank Gehry then went to work full time for the notable Los Angeles firm of victor gruen associates, but has to then go to the compulsory military service. After serving for a year in the army, Frank Gehry entered Harvard graduate school of design where he studies city planning. However he returned to Los Angeles without completing a graduate degree. Frank Gehry took his wife and two kids to Paris where he spent a year working in the office of a French architect Andre Remondet. Soon after Gehry and his family moved back to Los Angeles where Frank set up his own firm, Gehry associates.

Frank Gehry is an architecture whose work is based on buildings and the way the they are built. Frank Gehry said

  ‘Architecture is a small piece of this human equation, but for those of us who practice it, we believe in its potential to make a difference, to enlighten and to enrich the human experience, to penetrate the barriers of misunderstanding and provide a beautiful context for life's drama.
’

I find Frank Gehry work very interesting because of the way he designs these buildings in a way that it almost looks like an illusion. I like how his work is not just straight lines and blocks of builings, instead its buildings which have curves and bends in them which make the building look much more unique compares to a normal building that’s just a tall block. His designs are very fascinating and different from the ordinary. I think his work is very inspiring especially for architects around the world. 

Jamie Reid

This image is off the Queen and has the lettering saying God save the queen , sex pistols going across her eyes and face. I think that the most surprising part of this picture is the fact that Jamie Reid has used the royal Queens face and covered her main features, which seems wrong to do. People would never imagine any artist doing this to the Queens face or any part of the royalty family. Using newsprint, photocopy, ink and paper collage did this image. The different medias he has used for this image has given a old vintage effect with the bold outstanding letters. When first looking at this image it gives the feeling that its taking away the queens power and almost mocking her as the bold writing has covered up her mouth and eyes which are the main features of the face.

Jamie Reid was born in 1947 in Belfast, Ireland. Jamie grew up in London. While he was at the art school in the late 1960’s , he met the other students and the future sex pistols manager, Malcolm McLaren who later formed the sex pistols and asked if Jamie Reid would work with the band. Jamie Reid designed his artwork for the Sex pistols and symbolized the English punk rock scene in the late 70s. Jamie Reid says ‘Punk was part of a story that had been going on for the whole of then century, if not longer’.

Jamie went to the Croydon College in London where he studies art and met the sex pistols future manager and left Croydon in the year 1970.

While working closely with the sex pistols Jamie Reid designed artwork for the groups debut studio album , never mind the bollocks, Here’s the sex pistols. He also wrote part of the lyrics for one of the bands most popular songs and produced the cover for the song, a torn up union jack flag with safety pins attached to it. He also produced another picture of the Queen with a safety pin on her lip.

Reid continued to work as an artist, working on his political leanings , set belief.

He also worked with many other artists to create pieces of work that protested nuclear weapons, racism and fairer criminal justice system. For most of the 1980s-90s Jamie Reid worked with the world of music group, Afro Celt sound system. Jamie Reid now has a daughter and is currently marries to artist Maria Hughes.

In my opinion I like the picture because of the concept and the fact that Jamie Reid has almost taken a risk in using the Queens face and covering up the main features. However I also dislike his work because I think that his work is slightly plain. In the image of the queen I think it could have been produced better in my opinion, for example the lettering , it could have faded into the queens eyes and mouth and created the outline of her features . I like how Jamie Reid’s work is almost strange and it definitely shows the punk side of the image and the band ‘sex pistols’, it doesn’t go off the theme which is really good.

Michael Craig Martin

This is a painting done by Michael Craig Martin. In this painting he has spelt the words 'news' and has the outline of a globe, which shoes us that this painting is all about the news around the world. The colours which he has used gives a clam and relaxing mood and he has used very neat lines. By making this paint very simple , he gives a short and easy message saying what the painting is about.

This painting has been painted by using acrylic and to get the straight neat lines he has like tape to get the work neat. 

Michael Craig Martin was born on the 28^th of August 1941 in Dublin and past away at the age of 71.  He is known for his paintings, which use flat bold colours without any tone. Michael Craig Martin grew up and was educated in the United states. He studies Fine Art at the Yale university and architecture. In the year 1966, Craig Martin moved to England to teach and which is where he lived ever since. One of Craig Martins early pieces of famous work is called An Oak Tree, which was done in the year 1973. The oak tree was a glass of water sitting on a shelf which Michael Craig Martin says is an oak tree. His more recent work includes a range of different medias such as painting, printmaking, drawing and much more.  In the same year he was taught at Goldsmiths college in London where he was a huge influence on other students throughout the 1980’s and 1990s. Michael Craig Martins early pieces of work were inspired by the American artists such as Donald Judd. However, most of Michaels Craig Martins work was mainly about normal household materials. By playing around with the different objects , layering them, using scale and looking at the different angles. For example one of his pieces of work was called four identical boxes with lids reversed. Michael Craig Martin use four boxes and sliced off the different angles of the box and then changing the helves.

Craig martin had his first one man exhibition at the Rowan Gallery in London in the year 1969 and ever since then he has been shown many times in both the UK and abroad. He then later shoes all his wall drawings at the museum of modern art in New york in the year 1991.  Michael Craig Martin is recognized as an  effective artist and an very inspiring and influential teacher. Most of Michael Craig Martins work now is full of bold bright flat colours without the use of tone. The objects which he paints are off normal objects that people would find at home and have been drawn and painted by Craig Martin. He uses his scale and colour very well and makes the objects almost look cartoony and unrealistic. For example this painting of the huge pin and bucket, the pin is much bigger than the bucket which is unrealistic and would not be like that in reality.

 

In my opinion I dislike Michael Craig Martins work but I think what he has done in his paintings are very good. I think that his work is slightly boring because of the fact that there is no tone at all and so everything seems a bit too cartoony. Michael Craig Martin says "everything I know about colour comes from that course". Also the colours he uses are thick but are bland which I don’t find very eye catching at all. However , I think that he has used the scale well in the fact that the smaller objects are sometimes bigger than they should be such as the pin.

Kara Walker 

Kara walker was born on the 26^th of November, 1969 in California. She had spent her childhood in San Francisco but in the year 1983 her family moved to Atlanta where she receiver her BFA from the Atlanta college of the art in the year 1991. BFA stands fro Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. The artist Kara Walker is best known for exploring the race, gender and sexuality through her bold silhouette figures which are either painted or made from cut out stencils which have then been put up in walls of the exhibitions that she has done. In Kara Walkers work she shows the relationship between the blacks and the whites at her time and the history of the slavery that happened in the past.

During the high school years for kara walker she had white friends that did not consider her to be socially black. Kara Walker got her inspiration and started doing her passion for black and white silhouettes from her father.

“One of my earliest memories involves sitting on my dad’s lap in his studio in the garage of our house and watching him draw. I remember thinking: ‘I want to do that, too,’ and I pretty much decided then and there at age 2½ or 3 that I was an artist just like Dad.” —Kara Walker ¹

Kara Walkers themes are mainly about power, repressions, history race and sexuality. Her work was influenced by reading historical harlequin romances. After she had graduated in 1994, Walker had a show at The Drawing Art Center in New York City, which attracted many critics. Three years later Walker was then received with the MacArthur foundation award, which made her the youngest recipient. Also she became so well known that the Time magazine included her in the annual ‘100 Top Influential People in the world’. In the year 2002, Walker moved to Manhattan where she currently teaches at the school of arts at Columbia university.

n my opinion Kara Walkers work interest me because not only is her work just a painting or cut out stencils of black and white, it also tells you about the past  history about the blacks and whites and the slavery which happened, giving us a story to read when looking at her work. Also, the fact that she only uses black and white to create her beautiful and powerful pieces of art. By just using black and white , i find it personally hard to show the features of a person especially if you are trying to capture the emotions of a persons feelings. However, kara Walker has done an amazing job in showing a fantastic silhouette of the different characters and showing what is happening in the image. 

Si Scott

Si Scott was born in the year 1977 and has been interested in art since a very young age. He left school at the age of sixteen and soon went onto doing a BTEC in design at the art college. Later on he then did a foundation course in order to study graphic designing for the two years at Buckinghamshire university college.

Si Scott is a full-time artist and designer based in the UK. He's known for his unique style, blending hand-crafted and hand-drawn artwork that has given him many awards for his work. So far in his career he has completed projects for Matthew Williamson, Vogue, Nike, Tiffany & Co and Sony. As well as taking part for advertising campaigns for Guinness, Absolut and American Express. He worked for a couple of small design agencies where he learnt more about the industry and how to use the different skills. While he was employed he worked on his own ideas and developed them even further making them his original design. However, Si Scott was made redundant twice but, for Si Scott it was a good thing that happened as it made him push more for what he wanted to achieve and succeed in life.

For now Si Scott has taking time out to take his work onto a further level of creativeness. Challenging the 2D side of his work by changing his hand drawn creations in 3D form.

Si Scott has given talks and exhibited his work at institutions in cities around the world including Tokyo, New York, Brazil and Sydney. He has also been involved in judging for the D&AD and Scottish Design Awards.

His experience, skills and knowledge mean he is able to give guidance and contribute to a wide range of projects.

Si scotts work is very intricate with the fine lines and the swirls that drift of the page. Most of Si Scotts inspirations come from the music that he listens too. He starts his work by picking out a font that fits to theme or work, then he starts to play around with the different layouts for a while. After that he then brings his piece to life by using fineliners to create the intricate swirls and designs. My favorite pieces of work by Si Scott are the drawings of the different animals, as he has only used swirls to create these beautiful designs.

I also love the way that he uses typography, the way that he uses letters and designs them to look like an art piece instead of using normal letters. I love the way he designs the letters according to the theme or to the word by either using colour or monotone and the movement of his drawings.

Mr . Brainwash

MR BRAINWASH , who is he ? Mr. Brainwash is the moniker (slang name)  of Los Angeles , also known as Theirry 

Guetta and was born in France, 1966 and has become one of America’s most popular street artists. Mr. Brainwash is an artist who creates interesting pieces of art on the walls of the streets from Los Angeles to Paris. By using his spray-painted stencils and posters which have inspired him to create his art piece along the streets.

Mr     Mr. Brainwash was a French man who had filmed street artists all around LA at night for three years but, he never made the film that which he intended to.  He eventually made his own graffiti and sprayed them onto walls, all around the world.

In June 2008 Mr Brainwash made his art show called ‘Life is Beautiful’ which had creative pieces of work such as a pyramid made from 20,000 books, many visitors were attracted to his work. In the year 2009, Madonna the famous singer had asked from him to design the cover of her greatest hits.

Mr. Brainwashes work is all mainly about pop art and he has been inspired by the other artists such as the famous artist Banksy.

Neu Black interviewed Mr. Brainwash

New Black: what were your inspirations for the show?

Mr.Brainwash: All of the artists I’ve seen inspire me. Banksy put me in the paper and said to me “you’ll do a show in June” He brought me out of the box 

Know that nothing is impossible, if you really want to do something. You really have to want to do it.  You think you see from your eyes but you really see from your heart. That’s why Life Is Beautiful.

This is an interview that Mr. Brainwash had and by what he says, his work is about pop art but also inspirations from other artists, mainly from Banksy.

My favorite piece of art done my Mr. Brainwash is the piece of a monkey sitting on a coca cola box and is using a spray can and has spelt out ‘Follow your dreams’. The reason for why I like this piece of art by Mr. Brainwash is because its not only strange but I like the colors that he has used in the background, it looks all messy as if it was a wall full of just paint and spray can but, if you closer at it you can see pictures in the background such as the Madonna face, spray can and the small letter ‘P’ in the background. I also like the phrase that he has used which is ‘Follow your dreams’

Mr. Brainwash’s work is strange in a way because of the different objects he uses and the wide range of different bold color. His work is very creative and some are unrealistic such as the monkey sitting on a coca cola can spraying out the words.  He has used his imagination and has created strange yet beautiful pieces of work, which the famous artist Banksy has inspired him.