Marilyn Propp, a Chicago-based artist, was born in New York. She holds a Bachelor of Art in University of Pennsylvania and Master of Art in University of Missouri-Kansas City. Among other positions such as the co-founder of Anchor Graphics, Propp is also a current adjunct faculty in the Art and Design Department at Columbia College Chicago.
Along with eleven other artists, Propp exhibits her Marine artwork as part of the group Climate of Uncertainty in the DePaul Art Museum at the DePaul University. Climate of Uncertainty is a group of twelve artists who presents their artworks that sheds light on the issues of pollution in the environment as well as the ecosystem. These artists travel around the world to photograph the declining health of Mother Earth. Some of these artists made sculptures, some recorded landscapes and projected them on walls, some exhibits a small-scale lab, some photographed, but Propps printed on woodcut panels.
One of Marilyn Propp’s latest artwork “Deep Sea Drifters II” (2012) is a woodcut print on twelve panels. Its goal is to depict a few of the marine life but mainly depicts the debris found in the oceans. These debris ranges from metal to organic, to plastic, to chemical waste. From afar and as a whole, these twelve woodcut panels seem like a conjoined piece of art. Amongst other artwork, Propp’s “Deep Sea Drifters II” stood out to me because the others were mainly photographs of landscapes and people and objects. Propp’s piece was largely pinned onto the wall with map-pins on each corner of the panels.
“Deep Sea Drifters II” didn’t stand out because it wasn’t a photograph but because the style of art seemed like something like a nine-year-old’s crayon work. Of course, when I looked closer, the piece...
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...her yet preserving each object’s detail so that the audience can still tell what it is. In “Deep Sea Drifters II”, Propp is not trying to present things in an orderly manner; rather, she compensates the passive mood of the blue color with a chaotic feeling by clustering all the “debris” together.
Marilyn Propp does different types of artwork. Her most recent series of artwork are mainly woodblock printing. She is very minimal in regards to color usage in all of her woodblock print artworks. Also, all of her past woodblock prints was very minimalistic because there are not many objects found in each piece of artwork. “Deep Sea Drifters II” is Propp’s most extensive piece of woodblock print consisting of twelve woodblock panels while her previous works were only single panels. Other than woodblock printing, Propp also did paintings and drawings since 1989 until 2007.
As the original mastermind behind the “...lost” surf boards that began showing up a few years ago, Drew Brophy gave new life to the almost forgotten art of surfboard illustration.
From an early age the artist felt ostracized from nature and his only connection to wild life was through the natural museum of history and his uncle’s house, which was filled with taxidermy. His parents were divorced and his father suffered from alcoholism. His tough childhood forced Walton Ford to find humor in the challenging aspe...
I observed a very unique series of photographs by Vik Muniz called Seeing is Believing. Vik Muniz’s images are not simply photography but are pictures of complicated pieces of art he has produced at earlier times. Utilizing an array of unorthodox materials including granulated sugar, chocolate syrup, sewing thread, cotton, wire, and soil Muniz first creates an image, sculpturally manipulates it and then photographs it. Muniz’s pictures include portraits, landscapes, x-rays, and historical images.
The exhibition of recent stoneware vessels by Peter Voulkos at Frank Lloyd Gallery featured the sort of work on which the artist established reputation in the 1950s. The work was greeted with stunned amazement. However now it is too, but it's amazement of a different order -- the kind that comes from being in the presence of effortless artistic mastery. These astonishing vessels are truly amaising. Every ceramic artist knows that what goes into a kiln looks very different from what comes out, and although what comes out can be controlled to varying degrees, it's never certain. Uncertainty feels actively courted in Voulkos' vessels, and this embrace of chance gives them a surprisingly contradictory sense of ease. Critical to the emergence of a significant art scene in Los Angeles in the second half of the 1950s, the 75-year-old artist has lived in Northern California since 1959 and this was his only second solo show in an L.A gallery in 30 years.”These days, L.A. is recognized as a center for the production of contemporary art. But in the 1950s, the scene was slim -- few galleries and fewer museums. Despite the obscurity, a handful of solitary and determined artists broke ground here, stretching the inflexible definitions of what constitutes painting, sculpture and other media. Among these avant-gardists was Peter Voulkos.” In 1954, Voulkos was hired as chairman of the fledgling ceramics department at the L.A. County Art Institute, now Otis College of Art and Design, and during the five years that followed, he led what came to be known as the "Clay Revolution." Students like John Mason, Paul Soldner, Ken Price and Billy Al Bengston, all of whom went on to become respected artists, were among his foot soldiers in the battle to free clay from its handicraft associations.
Besides bright or dim colors, and fine or rough brush strokes, artists use centralized composition to convey their interpretations in "The Acrobat's Family with a Monkey," "Amercian Gothic," "The Water-Seller," and "The Third of May,1808.”
Kaeppler, Adrienne Lois, Christian Kaufmann, and Douglas Newton. Oceanic art. English language ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1997.
Spending time looking at art is a way of trying to get into an artists’ mind and understand what he is trying to tell you through his work. The feeling is rewarding in two distinctive ways; one notices the differences in the style of painting and the common features that dominate the art world. When comparing the two paintings, The Kneeling Woman by Fernand Leger and Two Women on a Wharf by Willem de Kooning, one can see the similarities and differences in the subjects of the paintings, the use of colors, and the layout
University of Virginia, VA: National Art Education Association, 1992. Print. Gilbert, Jonathan P and Rachel Mills. Michelin Green Guide California.7 ed.
Searching in their bag once more the artist discovers a mop paint brush, the artist rubs their mop paint brush into each and every palette color; embracing their many options. With slow, steady and spongy strokes; the artist creates a clown-inspired painting from each color on their palette. Patting the color onto the canvas the artist creates a textured look to make the image appear to be oddly 3-dimensional. The artist then grabs their art sponge to blend the colors together for a dreadful rainbow-inspired effect, in hopes that these appealing colors will attract their critics’ attention and encourage the critics to ask for insight to understand the artist’s
In the painting from the art institute shows the beach at low tide, influenced by native fishermen and their dark-sailed working boats, while the Metropolitan Museum's features white sailed yachts on a sunny day and the urban tourists enjoying the water at high tide. This can also relate to upper class and the middle working class. In the beach and sea pictures of 1867, Monet was plainly not trying to reproduce faithfully the scene before him as examined in detail but rather attempting to record on the spot the impression that relaxed. He wanted to show what was seen then, with all its movement and vitality. Buildings, figures, boats, and the pebble beach are swiftly brushed in as flat color patterns, with little attention paid to their weight or
I decided to choose my subject by walking around the museum and seeing which one “called” to me. I chose Glisten (1972) by Sam Gilliam because the bright colors grabbed me as soon as I saw it and a feeling of happiness washed over me. Sam Gilliam (b. 1933) is a very well known African-American painter, innovative for his use of three-dimensional canvases (University of Kentucky), who is a part of the American Abstract Artists group, as well as many other movements, such as the Washington Color Field movement (Malyon). Glisten is a 27 x 73 15/16 x 3” acrylic on canvas 3-dimensional artwork (University of Kentucky).
The subject of this artwork is a shipwreck. I see it looks like a storm in the ocean and there’s a ship but the ships mass and sails appear to be damaged. The crew is lowering lifeboats, suggesting that they have to abandon ship. A rescue boat is coming in on the right side of the painting and another boat and ship are coming in on the left side of the painting to help the crew from the distressed ship. There also appears to be a lighthouse at a distance. The action being conveyed is the waves crashing into the ship. The darkness in the waves and the colors he used made them seem like there real ocean waves. The art piece does seem to be telling ...
The first painting analyzed was North Country Idyll by Arthur Bowen Davis. The focal point was the white naked woman. The white was used to bring her out and focus on the four actual colored males surrounding her. The woman appears to be blowing a kiss. There is use of stumato along with atmospheric perspective. There is excellent use of color for the setting. It is almost a life like painting. This painting has smooth brush strokes. The sailing ship is the focal point because of the bright blue with extravagant large sails. The painting is a dry textured flat paint. The painting is evenly balanced. When I look at this painting, it reminds me of settlers coming to a new world that is be founded by its beauty. It seems as if they swam from the ship.
Looking at landscape art, especially when painted by one of the masters, many have undoubtedly pondered: what would it be like to live there? Shapes and attention to detail are, of course, important in a painting. However, it is color that draws the eye and inspires the heart. Oscar Wilde, an Irish poet and dramatist, spoke well of this when he noted that, “Mere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways. (qtd in “color”)”. Vincent Ward had a similar understanding of this impact when, in 1998, he directed the movie What Dreams May Come. Looking at this film, one can easily imagine being inside a living painting. The use of color to emphasize the emotional state of a character or event is common in films; nevertheless, Director Ward goes even farther in using color to represent the actual characters themselves. Red is the shade chosen to signify Annie and likewise, blue is used for Chris. Both of these, as will be shown, are accurate in defining these fictitious people. However, it is the profound use of purple in this film that is the true focal point. When mixing red and blue paint, one would find that, after being mixed, they cannot be separated. Likewise, this is true of the life and love these characters build and share. Purple represents the many ways in which Chris and Annie are melded, and joined.
This is one of many prints by David Lloyd Blackwood called “The Ledgy Rocks”. This piece is of Newfoundland and Labrador's coast which David commonly uses as a muse and inspiration for his artwork. In this print the subject is a whale gliding through the rough ocean with a shipwreck and fish swimming below, as well as a sun set occurring in the horizon.