Contemporary Drawing Practices: Portrait

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Ajit Chauhan, Artist

Among his works, my favorite are Chauhan’s erased album covers. By removing the big picture on the cover, Chauhan leaves you questioning not what this object was, but what it now represents. In his ReRecord series, you are left with an eery collection of eyes, hair, and errant limbs all floating on cream-colored backgrounds. But what is curious is that in the end, though you know these were once record covers, you are merely interested in what is left of what you may have once known. The origin is irrelevent.

Source is Power Animals

http://www.power-animals.com/2011/03/16/ajit-chauhan-at-the-jack-hanley-gallery-2/

Artist Website

http://ajit-chauhan.com/

Lisa Kokin, Artist

Artist Website

http://www.lisakokin.com/sewn-found-photos01#!prettyPhoto

Marlene Dumas, Artist

Watercolor and ink wash on paper.

Ellen Gallagher, Artist

Artnet. source link

http://www.artnet.com/artists/ellen-gallagher/deluxe-portfolio-of-60-OUempBKExtaCvrz5996RJg2

"The artist "whites out" such features as lips, hair, or wigs with yellow plastacine. These then stand out from the surface as a kind of sculptural relief, lovingly formed elements that read as a voluptuous ornamentation. They accentuate precisely the racial attributes the products were intended to diminish. The malleable putty is striated and carved in ways that recall African tribal art, although that's not the exclusive cultural reference." From article.com. Link here.

"I scan pages from advertisements about control: acne, unruly hair, corns, bunions, and asthma. These all have particular class connotations, and I remember hearing, as a child, that you got asthma from cockroaches, from enclosed spaces. Constriction is interesting to me as the loss of control of something as elemental as your breath. Corns and bunions have something specific about them too, something so black, that is funny to me. But they have a specificity that is not about race but rather about skin and about being on your feet all the time. Just like the ads have their own material history, plasticine was used for stop-action animation to suggest motion and also to make models. These structures are built out of whimsy but are also very tectonic." From Ellen Gallagher Talks. Link here.

From db artmag. Link here.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Titus Kaphar, Artist

Uncle Thomas, 2008, Titus Kaphar, American, b. 1976, tar on paper, 48 x 36in. (121.9 x 91.4cm),

Photo courtesy of Roberts & Tilton, Culver City, CA.

PERSONAL HISTORIES

JUL 5 2014 – MAY 3 2015

SEATTLE ART MUSEUM

THIRD FLOOR GALLERIES

Historical narratives tend to highlight key events in a nation’s history. The fate of a country’s leaders, wars won or lost, and other transformative national events are enshrined as “official” history, while the struggles and successes of minorities and less influential groups often remain forgotten or in the margins.

The artists in this installation–including Laylah Ali, William Cordova, Titus Kaphar, Whitfield Lovell, and Kara Walker–chart alternative narratives. All works in Personal Histories are drawn from SAM’s collections.

Image and Text Source is Seattle Art Museum