Artist Research
Noel Fielding
Within Noel Fielding's work there are cultural references to The Mighty Boosh and Luxury Comedy. His drawings focus on the themes of surrealism, da-da and neo-expressionism, and show a feast of colour as well as being a trip into his soul.
His latest paintings explore a range of scale and techniques, ranging from small intermit pieces to large scale canvases. The painted surface is the embodiment of visceral energy and gestural performance. Noel's work is layered, textured with underpainting techniques then forcefully working paint into the surface with brushes and his hands. Often Noel works on an alternative perspective, turning the canvases on their head to work into the paintings.
Noel Fielding’s work has been an influence to my own in various ways. His line drawings are bold and create a contrast between the background colours and the foreground images. The layered textures and techniques are also on a similar style to the way in which I create my own pieces. Working with different mediums and materials to add dimension. Also for some of my pieces I also work on an alternative perspective to get another view of my work.
Chris Ofili
Chris Ofili is a British contemporary painter, who works with a vibrant pallet of colours and applies textures to examine both the contemporary and historical black experience. He deploys inventive figuration rendered in paint and also collages materials such as glitters, magazines, cut outs and ever resin into his work.
He is best known for the controversy created by his painting ‘The Holy Virgin Mary (1996)’ which was exhibited and sparked the start of protests. The protests started due to his choice in subject matter as well as the use of lacquered, glittered elephant dung as a source of material to place the artwork upon.
This piece was later vandalised.
There is a link within my own work to Chris Ofili’s due to the use of mixed materials to work into the artwork and also the use of religious symbolism. I try to use modern day icons in a religious was to put my message across, and this is why I feel that Ofili has caused such controversy within his own work, as religion is a very touchy subject.
Howard Hodgkin
Howard Hodgkin is a prominent figure in British art in the 1970s and mostly associated with abstract art. Painting on wooden supports such as drawing boards and door frames instead of traditional canvas, is how most of his work is generated.
His work shows broad gestural brush strokes and a vivid palette of contrasting colours, which helps to emphasise the rectangular plane and help define the painting more of an object. However, within his earlier work he experimented with collaging geometric flatness.
Within the later work of Hodgkin there are etchings and aquatint prints, which increasingly incorporated more complex fluid patterns. These pieces were influenced by the work of Matisse and Edouard Vuillard.
Influences such as Howard Hodgkin has massively helped with my current work, by looking at new ways to create each piece. Looking at alternative materials not only to work on but to paint with. The brush strokes and patterns within his work have a link within my own and will continue to create an influence when creating the backgrounds of my future pieces.
Hannah Hoch
Dada artist Hannah Hoch, is well known for her political collages and photomontages (a form she helped pioneer). Recombining images and text taken from mass media to critique popular culture, the failing of the Weimar Republic and the socially constructed roles of women. Often gender issues were referenced in her work which led to her being well recognised as a pioneering feminist artist especially for works such as Das Schone Madohen (the beautiful girl), (1920).
Her inspiration came from the collage work of Pablo Picasso and a fellow Dada exponent Kurt Schwitters, which her own work would share a similar dynamic and layering style.
Hoch preferred metaphoric imagery to the more direct, text based confrontational approach to her topics.
There is a similar link between my own personal work and the work of Hannah Hoch, which is the use of photographs and collage to get the message across, within a painting. Hannah Hoch’s work will help in the development into my future work and make me think about the use of more mixed media.
Frank Stella
Frank Stella is an American abstract painter, who was influenced by artists such as Pollock and Klien, then later in his work by Newman and Johns.
His reaction against abstract expressionism, he painted in 1958-60 a series of black pictures with the entire canvas covered with regular bands of white. Followed by, in the 1960s, the aluminium series. This led to his first shaped canvas piece.
Further series included more radically shaped formats and some with multi-colour and cut-out shapes in relief. Most of his work includes the use of colours working with one another and shapes interacting together. His etchings and relief work were composed as collages, and most of his work was of a large scale.
Stella has played a huge influence on my work over all three years of my practice at Sunderland Uni, and within this year’s work it shows with the use of his shaped canvases and the broad use of colour. He will continue to be an influence on my work as I go onto further experiment with the use of shape, not only in the paintings but also with the canvas.