Internet Research Project

Ally Goodman-Janow

Drawing 106

Artist Research

Artists I liked: 

Kate Ten Eyck : charcoal

 

Kimia Ferdowsi Kline : Oil on panel  

Alex Brewer : Silkscreen, Graphite and Acrylic on canvas 

Scott Espeseth : Ballpoint Pen 

- Monique Luchetti : Gouache and Watercolor  

Artists I didn’t like / didn’t understand: 

David Staniunas Adam Hinterlang : Pen

 

Daphne Plessner : Watercolor 

Judith Fegerl : Metal / Wire  

Diana Shpungin : Sculptures

  

Jarrod Beck : Iron Oxide, Charcoal, Graphite

The artist I felt the strongest connection/reaction to would have to be Kimia Ferdowsi Kline. Her art stems from the stories her father told her about his garden back in Tehran, Iran. She has not been able to visit or go back home to Iran, so she lives vicariously through her paintings and the gardens that they depict. Not only are the paintings beautiful, but they also represent speech, power and gender construction. 

I chose this artist because her work is extremely colorful, vivid, and really tells a story about the garden she is imagining. The colors are what originally caught my eye, and how detailed every inch of the panel is; there is no white space, but there are vast areas where nothing is happening, keeping the picture balanced with calm and chaotic. The colors are also not just your ordinary reds and greens, but hot pinks and dark blues and royal purples. These colors don’t lay flat on the page, they stand out and make each and every object pop from the background. She also tends to put contrasting colors next to or in front of other colors, and it really makes that object stand out and gives it dimension, even though some of her paintings don’t have a particular focal point. 

Another thing I really like about her work is that it depicts an imaginary garden that she created from stories told to her by her dad. I really enjoy nature, both viewing it and being surrounded by it, and her paintings give off a natural and euphoric sense of being outside in a garden. She paints plants with leaves of all shapes and sizes, trees, bushes, flowers, grass, etc. and makes it seem as though these plants were actually alive and moving. Although the colors are not realistic, they portray the excitement she got from hearing her dad’s stories about the whimsical garden and all the beautiful plants in it. Just looking at her paintings makes me want to see that garden too.

Lastly, I really like how she uses girls and women in her paintings to give a message and make the image more powerful. For example, in the sample painting above, there is a naked girl, probably young teens, sniffing some flowers. Nothing about the girl being nude is provocative or sexual, but instead, peaceful and rather ordinary. It’s as if this girl is in her natural habitat and just doing what she always does. It’s very innocent. In another piece, she has four teenage-looking girls laying in the middle of a walkway with their heads on each other’s stomachs. They are simply relaxing in the garden and enjoying each other’s company. Again, very innocent and undisturbed by the world around them. I know that whenever I lay outside I feel very tranquil and serene, and these women give me the sense that they feel the same way.