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Hello.
Welcome to my art appreciation thread.
I am starting this thread, perhaps for my own amusement, but in the hopes that other people will step forward to post images and talk about their favorite artists.
I believe art to be a concept without borders so I open this up to any kind of art you feel is...well, art. Be it of a traditional nature or concept art or even performance art. Sculpture, photography, architecture, graphic design, pin-ups, comics...whatever you like. Whatever moves you and makes you want to look again and again.
My only request is that you refrain from posting your own art here. We have forums for that purpose and we would like for you to use them. Besides, it's a little
declasse to toot your own horn in a venue such as this one, lol.
Okay...
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To open it up I'm going to showcase my favorite living painter, Odd Nerdrum.
Odd is from Norway (but currently resides in Iceland, yes Reykjavik, abaya, you lucky woman, you
) and from early on in his career has been a very controversial figure in the art world. And not for the reasons you might suspect after a cursory review of his work. Odd was schooled in art at a time when 'modern art' was the
de rigeur form and classicism was looked upon as old-fashioned and obsolete.
I love his work. It's hard to explain the emotional impact I get from looking at his paintings. It's just one of those things...it hits me as beautiful and vulnerable and ecstatic and powerful and painful and sorrowful all at the same time. And, I find the quality of his work to be not dissimilar from that of my favorite dead painter, Rembrandt van Rijn (I'll post a bit on his work soon, as well, if someone else doesn't beat me to it) - it's in the use of light and dark and the flesh - ah the flesh! - they both capture the most remarkable portrayals of human flesh.
Just to forewarn you, some of his work might be considered disturbing. He is a classicist, but not a traditionalist.
I’ve not been able to track down all of the titles and dates, but I’ve broken the works up by time period because I have a fairly good understanding of the sequence of his works…or at least can identify them usually by their style. His presence on the internet is sketchy at best.
You can especially see his devotion to classical technique and motifs in his early work...
Girl With Red Hair, 1964
The Meeting
The Murder of Andreas Baader, 1978
Amputation, 1974
Woman with Child, 1978
During the 1980’s and 90’s his work consistently depicted a futuristic modern primitive society – essentially remaking the concept of modernism in his own brush strokes. I find these works to be very evocative and haunting. Again, his depictions of the human figure are sublime, transcendent…and vulgar. The man is a fucking genius.
Summer Portrait, 1983
The Water Protectors, 1985
The Cloud, 1985
The Night Guard, 1986
Sole Morte, 1987
Sleeping Twins, 1987
Three Namegivers, 1990
Five Persons Around a Water Hole, 1992
Man Bitten By Snake, 1992
Hermaphrodite, 1992
Dying Couple, 1993
Dying Couple (detail)
Baby, 1993
Barter, 1996
Initiation, 1997
Hepatitis, 1997
Volunteer
The Flock
The Messenger
Some of his most recent works…
The Kiss, 2002
Love Divided, 2005
Love Divided (detail)
Love Divided (detail)
Limbo, 2005
Limbo (detail)
Then to wrap it up…some of my favorite Nerdrum paintings are his self-portraits.
Self-portrait with a Red Scarf, 1972
Man with Headband, 1984
Self-portrait in Armor, 1996
Blue Self-portrait, 1997
Self-portrait in Profile, 1998
Self-portrait as Polar Explorer, 2000
And, of course, I love it when he shows us he has a sense of humor about himself…
Self-portrait As the Prophet of Painting, 1998
Self-portrait in Golden Cape, 1998
Here is a good article about the artist...
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/feature-2004-02.html
And some other information about the man...
http://www.nerdrum.com/works/?catid=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Nerdrum
http://www.forumgallery.com/adetail.php?id=99