10 Artists Relating to my Work

Below are seven artists that relate visually to my work, and three artists whose work explores similar concepts to my own.

Visual Artists:

Gerhard Richter

My work often consists of experimentation's with paint. I explore how I can use and apply paint through composition and colour upon canvas and paper. I use a range of techniques and materials to apply paint to paper within my own work, this can be through the addition of flicks of paint or by simply changing the material I am working with. Within this module I have experimented with ink, charcoal, water colour and acrylic.

Visually, Gerhard Richter's paintings are similar to mine - the application of paint and use of colour being the main similarities. His paintings are normally on a large scale, the paint sometimes applied with a sweeping brush with the canvas on the ground. My works have also grown larger in scale and will continue to do so, exploring different concepts.

Joshua Gabriel

The most frequent experiment within my fine art practise has been wall paintings. I found that painting onto the wall had a surprising effect upon my methods of practise. I learnt to have more freedom as I applied the paint and to take risks with new ideas if they came to me. It became easier to let go and paint over something that didn't quite work, and push through until I found something that did. Joshua Gabriel's pieces, whilst much larger than my own, shares qualities similar to that of my own. The use of shape, colour and abstract patterns being the most obvious. His black and white work refers to the cosmos not unlike my own.

Van Gogh

Van Gogh's colour wheel is something I refer to constantly within my work. I select the colour pallet carefully to achieve harmony and unity within my images. I feel intensity in a range of emotion and this is represented through the saturation and desaturation within my work. Van Gogh's paintings share a similar, almost emotional pallet -although no one could ever say for sure whether his reasons for painting this way were the same as mine. His bold colours portray a somewhat warped view of his surroundings. My own work relates to Gogh's by sharing this quality. I take several aspects from daily life and merge them to create almost surreal scenes them to express what I want my work to say.

Lotar Gotez

This year, one of the more important focuses of my work has been experimentation with scale and size. At the start of the academic year, I travelled to Berlin. While visiting the galleries there, I was impressed by the size and scale of the art work. The larger pieces resonated with me and I felt compelled to experiment with expanding my own work to fill my studio space. I also attended Lotar Gotez's artist talk in University around the same time. His paintings are larger than mine and inspires me to experiment with even larger scale. The colours and shapes he uses share similar qualities to my own work, changing the viewers perception of the piece as they move around the work, changing their view point.

Miles MacGregor

Miles MacGregor paints large scale wall paintings, usually portraying spiritual concepts. His work often consists of figures - usually females, against an abstract background. His bold use of divine notions within his images are the focal point of his creations, opening the viewers mind to different ways of thinking and new questions about themselves and the world around them.

My own work shares similar qualities and themes to MacGregor's, the use of the female figure and spiritual aspects being the key characteristics. The backgrounds within these works often incorporate abstract, geometric shapes which are a common visual strategy when exploring spirituality within art works. I have been experimenting with the use of geometric shapes within my own work following researching Macgregor.

Caroline Achaintre

In the first semester, I visited the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary art in Newcastle where I first viewed one of Caroline Achairtre's exhibitions. Her installations are never the same in each gallery she shows her work, as the material she uses hangs loose. This effect in a way, almost brings the piece to life, therefore dominating the space it is in. My own work has a similar quality in the sense that it influences the room in an almost installation like manner. Her watercolour works are intriguing. She seems to refer to Van Gogh's colour wheel in many of these paintings, similar to my own methodology and studio practise.

Christoffer Relander

Christoffer Reland's work combines the ethereal beauty of natural landscapes over the female form using double exposures. Although this is a photography based practise, these images have been shot digitally, implying he has used the dodge and burn tools on photoshop, or a similar program in post processing. This could relate to the act of painting as the photographer has artistic control over the end product creating a painterly technique. Aesthetically the combination of the natural imagery and the female figure relate to my own work as nature is the dominate layer within the work, this relates back to my research into the sublime and my obsession with the universe. The layering of two elements is also something I use within my own work, both in my sketch book pieces and my mural. My work is often two dimensional and explores surrealism in a way that links back to my own relationship with the world around me. Reland's work links directly to this as he describes his work as been 'deeply personal' and 'reflections upon the winter of 2014.

Concept Artists:

Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko's reasons for his use of scale has been a huge influence in my work. His pieces are intended to invite the viewer to become "enveloped within" the painting, exploring the intimacy between the viewer and canvas . Designed to give the viewer a "sense of transcendence" and awe, Rothko's work also explores a sense of the unknown. I play with the size and scale of my paintings to develop a better understanding of how this can alter the viewers perception of the piece and the space it transcends. This translates into my work as a representation of my fascination with the unknown and of personal reflection.

Alex Grey

My work often consists of ethereal and natural imagery projected onto archetypal female silhouettes, and represents my simultaneous obsession with the inward and the outward. One of my influences when applying this concept was contemporary artist, Alex Grey. His work focuses on one's own divine nature by examining in detail the mind, body and spirit. Although my work does not always deal with as literal interpretations, our work definitely seems to explore similar phenomenons of spirituality, the unknown and our connection to the world around us. Grey's work is also well planned and precise, sometimes taking years at a time to complete one canvas. My work is similar in precision, used in order to create the desired effect of the piece.

James Turrell

James Turrell's idea about the sense of presence of space is a new influence within my art work. He explores and creates spaces designed to create a sense of presence - or even entity - within a precisely modified room. His intentions are to give the viewer an experience of "wordless thought" if sat for long enough. Although my work is on a far less epic scale, this idea interests me and I have started to incorporate it within my studio by painting a wall. I aim to explore this idea further by painting more of my studio walls, transforming it into a new space where the creation dominates the viewer as opposed to the opposite.