Modern art is something that is difficult to understand, everyone sees their own symbols in every modern art installation, sculpture or painting. Modern artists prefere leaving space for the imagination of the viewers rather than giving straightforward descriptions of their works, many of them even leave their masterpieces without title, as it can also set limits to your creative perception. From the middle of 1880`s the artists started to pay attention to their personal feelings rather than to academic accuracy in their artworks. Since then artworks started to reflect artists’ inner thoughts and feelings.
In this article you will get to know some Modern paintings, and the artists who created them and will read about the way these paintings inspired TrendGallery painters to create their artworks. We asked our artists what features in these famous canvases inspired them to create their own art pieces. And you will find the answers below.
Cecily Brown| Untitled| 2009
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Cecily Brown was born in London and has been living in New York for 25 years. In her interview she said that living in a big city left a huge mark on her outlook and as a result on her artworks. “In my world everything is splitted and shattered”. She takes inspiration in photographs and many of them are lying on the floor in her studio. The artist never has one particular reference, but uses many of the pictures to create her paintings. Many of her artworks bear strong resemblance to figurative art, as in the diversity of brushstrokes you will definitely find real people's bodies.
Her artworks contain classic images and caricature, she tries to combine different styles and erotic images are not rare in her works. Those features attract a lot of art lovers. Brown`s artworks are like theatrical performances, the images are moving and the shades of paint are dancing on canvas.
Inspiration for the artist from TrendGallery
I was in love with colors. They reminded me of fall. I also love the combination of big spots and small details and how the pure colors are mixed with complex ones. I used these combinations in my artwork as well but instead of fall motifs I chose summer ones.
Liu Wei| Beyond the Sky| 2012
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Liu Wei is a contemporary Chinese artist who became famous as a result of his innovative approach to art. His paintings reflect genuine human's emotions immersed into the busy lifestyle of a big city. The canvas “Beyond the sky” itself shows the contest between natural and urban. The upper side reminds us about the warm summer sunset and the lower side, on the opposite, about concrete grayish and strict city buildings and skyscrapers.
Liu Wei witnessed a period of quick urbanization in China, that's why he implemented his experience in his personal art style. The artist works not only with the wall paintings but also with sculptures that embody everyday objects like books, fridges ets and are transformed into the art pieces by playing with shapes and colors.
Inspiration for the artist from TrendGallery
You feel peace and quiet when you look at this work. This is due to the combination of colors and composition. There is no randomness, there is a clear logic here - a horizontal rhythm. The colors become brighter and more defined towards the center, and the lines are narrower, so the eye tends to go there.It is not boring either, because there are border lines that are blurred and also the ones which are well defined. I took inspiration in the story which is hidden behind the painting, but on the contrary, the grayish part of the painting was replaced to the green one in my work, as I chose “full nature motives” rather than the motives of contrasting nature and city.
Miquel Barcelo| Gramatica general| 2018
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His Art is performance, he is a master of improvisation and one of the biggest projects created by Miquel was an “Art cave”. It was a big cave with a lot of rooms inside where the artist had been creating his art with paints and clay. He is known as a great sculptor and artist.
Despite the fact that he came from Spain, his works are inspired by his travels to different countries and reflect different features of them. The artist studied the changing colors of the sea and created a lot of navy paintings. The special feature of his artworks is a dense texture and three-dimensionality.
One of the most crucial experiences in Miquel`s life is a long term trip to Mali, where he made his own little studio without electricity and water. This experience let him refresh in his mind “ the essence of the act of painting”, as you can easily forget it while working at the same comfortable studio permanently.
Inspiration for the artist from TrendGallery
The abstract sky and clouds occupy most of the space in the artwork and they are obviously more contrasting compared to the sea, so it evokes a slight feeling of pressure. I think it's about the power of nature, but the chaotic strokes create a slightly unsettling tone.In my artwork I depict the sky from another perspective as it was shown through a 360° camera. I use darker tones on the borders and lighter ones closer to the center. But still I decided to leave this dark motive throughout the painting, as I take great inspiration in a restless sky which I can observe before the heavy rain starts.
Sean Scully| Light in August| 1991
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“I never work without music”, said Sean in one of his interviews. His works are rhythmic and may look chaotic, but they hide a big energi inside. When you look at the working process of the artist, you see how involved in the creation process he is, he is not distracted by anything, he is working and living in the moment. The artist tends to include “dirtiness” of lines and unevenness of the edges to show his own emotion and experience at the moment of creation. If you are too oriented on details you may forget about the real intention of the art: making you live in the moment.
The main idea of my work represents something genuinely German, I want to combine structure and emotion
As the artist says himself, his artworks reflect melancholy, and his personal experience in this world. His black and white paintings show the viewers a real melancholic mood. The art of any creator is a self-portrait in a way, and the artist claims that if you want to be a part of the world of art you should be “completely in love with what you are doing”. And Sean is in love with his art.
Inspiration for the artist from TrendGallery
There is a geometry in this painting which you shouldn't think about a lot. The blocks in different directions remind me of dominoes or a maze. I find something meditative in this painting. The technique itself and the colors are concise, but not simple. There is a texture and a bit of uneven form, the stripes are not defined and it makes them eye-catching. Also I love the warm tone of white color. I used a similar color in my artwork TRANSFORMATION. In my painting I used the motifs of a maze as well but I decided to live it without visible exit. You will be able to find it outside of the canvas.
Mark Bradford| Oracle| 2017
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Oracle is not a painting. It is made of black and white paper dome, which depicts an ancient grotto, where oracles would make their predictions. This installation looks majestic and mysterious, it takes a lot of space and the gold black and white circles make you hypnotized.
I didn't become an artist to do anything other than to work out my own voice and to get stuff out of me
- Mark sais
His way of seeing the art is not traditional and he didn`t use paint to create his recent works. His idea is using paper instead of paint. The process is s following:
- The paper from billboards, flyers, magazines, newspapers is left in water until it is soaked enoughht for using it as a paint alternative material.
- It is put on canvas or different surfaces and formed in different shapes and figures.
Mark`s idea is to “use the social fabric of the time we live in”. You will definitely see the paint on canvas, while seeing his work from a distance, but as you come up to it, you will realize that paper is used instead. The artist uses “the memories of current days” left in the streets to make longlast art.
Mark is interested in the development of civilization, how people tend to destroy the experience of the previous generation, but leave just some bricks which they use when building up the new one. And this process is endless.
In fact, the artist tears apart something old and makes something new of it, following the same principle.
Inspiration for the artist from TrendGallery
When I first saw this installation I was amazed by the scale of it, it is rather huge. And while standing under this spring-shaped portal you really feel like a center of the universe. Circular compositions are usually used by the artists when they want to show cyclicity and infinity, something almost religious and philosophical.And this installation is placed on the ceiling which makes it mystic and occult. Inspired by this installation I created the painting BRIGHT BALL. I like thinking about this artwork as about the portal to another world but I gave it the name Bright Ball to confuse people in a way and make them think beyond the obvious.
Gregory Kondos| Pebble Beach| Unknown date
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Gregory Kondos, makes the art of color. The color scheme of his artworks reflects his own perception of the colors of landscapes that surrounded him throughout his life.
After these years I realized that I`m a painter of life and mistakes
The artist believes that when making mistakes you can develop your hand art by solving them. The artist has been into the colors of water and in how it reflects the surrounding world. That's why he bought a cheap boat as a young, and was observing natural phenomena through the reflection of the water.
Some people consider him a legendary painter but the artist himself claims that being painter and beint artists are two different things.
A painter is one who paints, and the artist is a guy who tries to do everything
Kondos is an artist who has never chased money, but liked the idea of longevity of “what is on the walls”.
Inspiration for the artist from TrendGallery
I will be rather laconic, I love the shadows in this art piece. The way the artist made them not just gray or black, but colorful gives me a feeling of a warm summer day.When I read about the way Kondos took inspiration from the nature sitting in his boat, I decided to feel the same experience. And it worked. The idea of the painting Stormy was born on the shore of the Black sea.
Albert Oehlen| Born to Be Late| 2001
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Albert received a lot of criticism, after the exhibition in New York, which included 27 works by the artist, made in the key moments of his life. Even some of the Oehlen`s admirers claim that they felt disappointment by frankly sloppy and random strokes and figures. No composition, no color unity, but still these colorful paintings have something special. At first sight they awake confusion but after careful observation everyone can find some elements which they will be attracted to. The artist uses oil paintings and pieces of digital images that are hardly interwoven and have nothing in common but still try to become friends on his canvas.
His artworks bare endless energy, they don't require good composition.
The artist was Inspired by just one painting by John Graham which bears the image of a self portrait- caricature of John Graham himself, a mermaid figure and the letter “H”. The painting looks badly organized and every object is placed randomly on canvas, but for Albert this painting was a huge interpretational opportunity that motivated him to create a lot of artworks with the same random and messy thematic.
The artist was into jazz music which taught him to combine organization and improvisation.
One of the important features of his gallery is the random short sound which appears and disappears. The artist himself has a really unpredictable personality, as the people who knows them say:
It's never clear what Albert do next
Inspiration for the artist from TrendGallery
There are a lot of layers, shapes, colors in this work. In one spot you can find faces, and in another one primitive forms, a clipping from a magazine looks like a riot. In terms of composition, you can take any part from the canvas and it will be a separate piece of art. All the sections are interesting as they all can exist independently.My work was definitely inspired by Born to Be Late painting in terms of colors and composition. But I decided to make mine less provocative and made it look rather like a mosaique or a puzzle, where a plenty of big figures live together on one canvas as something holistic.
Anselm Kiefer| Jerusalem| Unknown date
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With a cigarette in his hand and small catana in another one, Anselm creates his art. Dozens of layers have been applied one by one to reach the effect of concrete on canvas. The final step is revealing previous layers, by beating off the upper dry paint with a tool. The artist compares his working process with the cosmos, where “construction, demolition and reconstruction” happens all the time.
The stars are dying, the new ones are born instead. When the star explodes, the stones and materials which it left are flying in space until they gather again and create something new. Making this analogy, the artist leaves all the parts of paint which are left after “demolition” to create something new in future. His texture art is three dimensional and multi layered.
When Anselm was a child he would play with ruined houses and construction as he was born in 1945 in Germany, when the II World War was over. He played with bricks and ruins and this memory definitely left an imprint on his art, which can be called “The art of ruining and creation”
Inspiration for the artist from TrendGallery
There is a complex technique, no clear boundaries, everything moves. Due to the layers and heat-coldness the painting feels like a 3d image. The colors are subdued but detached. The overall harmony is broken only by clearer dark lines that look like cuts or scars, this is also an attention catching spot.Inspired by this artwork I created a painting ENERGY FLOWS. I made it dramatic and dense textured, I wanted to transmit a bit of an aggressive vibe by adding cuts throughout the canvas. I tried to play with color combinations and added gloss to make it contrasting.
Richard Prince| High times| 2018
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Richard Prince is a very contravesing person in the world of art. He started his career by taking pictures of the photos in brochures and advertisements and selling them as their own. His art raised a lot of questions regarding copyright rights. Further he implemented pictures from magazines into his own works on canvas. The artist put the clippings on canvas and made his own images that interacted with them in different ways.
The artist loves being alone, he was chasing a new experience of living in the middle of the nowhere and ended up having bought a house at the end of the road in a small countryside. He rearranged the house as his own small gallery where he worked and exhibited his pieces of art. The exhibition High times was one of significant events throughout his career.
A High Times is a series of large wall paintings created on the basis of the artist`s previous Hippie drawings, which he created a lot. In one of the interviews the artist said “It was fun making these paintings. Or at least I thought it was fun.”
Inspiration for the artist from TrendGallery
I love his style. Richard Prince is a very bold artist. This painting is similar to comics and I love how he uses the images of completely different people set on one plane. There is something crazy about this painting and you can spend a lot of time to study every image in this canvas.In painting MODERN SOCIETY I followed the desire to show different people under different circumstances. Some of the images show the outstanding features of people I know in real life. I just wanted to show that despite how different we are we all share the same Earth. My canvas is literally the Earth.
