Recently, I looked up an artist Coach mentioned in my sketchbook, Tracey Emin. After some quick research, I realized that I had seen Emin's artwork everywhere: primarily on Tumblr, if I'm being completely honest, but I had also heard of her infamous "My Bed" installation, although I had not connected the name to that piece before. Although she is not an unknown or particularly new artist, coming to fame in Britain in the 1980s and 90s, she is a contemporary artist and very new to me. I fell in love with her emotionally and sexually charged confessional artwork. Her artwork is often text based, but she uses a variety of media and different techniques, including mono-prints, painting, sculpture, neon, and drawing. Her artwork encapsulates the emotion and rawness that I want to transfer into my own. The pain and feelings she depicts or describes are relatable to nearly every human, and while often cliched, makes for powerful art.
Another artist I found was Brendan Fowler, a thirty-eight-year-old Los Angeles-based artist. While he is also a musician and works with his own record label, he is also a sculptor, photographer, and visual artist. His current exhibit in New York is portraits of musicians using industrial embroidery. Although it is not a medium I would select, I think that it is fascinating and am extremely intrigued by his creativity. Additionally, portraiture is difficult enough using traditional media such as pencil/charcoal/paint, so the skill it needs to create portraits using an industrial embroidery machine astounds me.