David Hockney

David Hockney (born in 1937) is an English painter, printmaker, and photographer. He created several landscape pieces, replacing his canvas with an iPad. His drawings embrace technology as a tool and use color in an exciting way. Several of his iPad drawings were featured at the DeYoung in SF. Since I am using technology for my WAS piece, Hockney's work really inspired me and showed me that the end product can be quiet clean and beautiful.

Bruce Munro

Bruce Munro is a british artist known for his large light-based installations.  He relies heavily on his sketchbook to record ideas and references and he likes to use reused materials.  He was a painter before he moved to Australia.  In Australia, he learned about design and lighting and worked with lights in display signs.  He then chose to work specifically with lights because he felt he needed a specific focus.
"I thought that by working in a medium that was very pure and true I could then have the opportunity to express lots of different ideas that filled my head."
His work is about memory and moments in the shared human experience/connection.

I chose this artist because I liked how he worked with lights in these huge outdoor spaces.  It gives his work a type of fantastical element and it's just really nice to look at.

http://www.brucemunro.co.uk/work/installations/

Sadam Yohiszawa

Sadam Yohiszawa is a Japanese artist who draws and designs for skateboard companies. His work is incredibly detailed and he does most of it in ink pens. I chose him as an artist because I am interested in designing skateboard decks. He has had many solo art exhibitions in Japan as well as some in the U.S., including San Francisco. He has done work for many skate companies including Thrasher Skateboard Magazine, Real Skateboards, and Consolidated Skateboards.

These are some of my favorite works by him:

This is a drawing he did with and without color.

http://sdm-r-arm.com/?lang=en

http://sadam-yoshizawa.tumblr.com/

Mike Blabac

Mike Blabac is a skateboard photographer from Michigan. He grew up reading skate mags and paying a  lot of attention to the skate scene. He moved to San Francisco when he was 20 and began shooting the local skaters. Later on in his life he moved to LA and continued his work. He worked for many major skate companies and now works for DC shoes. He is one of the most widely known skate photographers and has been there to shoot some of the craziest events that have happened in skate history.

I chose this person because he is the documentation of the skaters from SF in the 90's that pretty much defined and created skateboarding as it is today. Through my job, I got to meet him and got a signed copy of his book. Its particularly interesting to me because a lot of the people that he photographed are now people that I have met and know.

http://www.blabacphoto.com/

Andre Ermolaev

Andre Ermolaev is a Russian photographer who has been interested in seeing how the world around him through camera since 7th grade. There is not a lot of information about him, as photography is not actually his main profession. I choose him upon seeing this picture, and thinking it was a painting:

I've always found photorealistic art interesting, but never thought about the other side in which photos begin to look like abstract art. The image is part of a series of aerial photos of rivers in Iceland. 

He also takes more traditional photographs, such as these ones from Greece:

Yayoi Kusama

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist.  She has worked in many different media – including but not limited to sculpture, painting, performance art.  Kusama moved beyond the realms of the two art movements going on in her career: pop art and minimalism.  Kusama joined the fashion realm in 2012 when she designed clothes, bags, and accessories for Louis Vuitton, created a set for a photo shoot, and completely transformed a store.

I chose Yayoi Kusama because I've always admired her work – especially within the fashion world.

http://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/yayoi-kusama/biography/

http://www.archiscene.net/interior-design/louis-vuitton-store-yayoi-kusama/

http://www.hisstylediary.com/2012/07/17/the-louis-vuitton-yayoi-kusama-concept-store-in-singapore/

Glenn Ligon

http://www.art21.org/artists/glenn-ligon

Glenn Ligon, as a black, gay man living in the United States, most often deals with the concepts of race, sexuality, language, identity, and masculinity. Ligon works primarily with paint, however, he has made many pieces through sculpture, silkscreen, video, neon, and Adobe Flash. Ligon currently lives in New York and continues to make art.

I chose this artist because the issues Ligon grapples with through his art are relevant to what's going on in the world today and what we've been discussing lately as a school in both the Teach-Ins and the Month of Understanding. Glenn Ligon is very good at creating a personal narrative through evocative historical and literary references. He expresses intense emotion, pride, and anxiety through minimalistic pieces and I admire the way he works with texture to present an evocative message.

Hands, 1996

I thought this piece would be interesting to include because of how applicable it is to current events, although made 19 years ago.

Malcom X, 2001

Sun (Version 2) #1, 2001

Rumble Young Man Rumble (Version #2), 1993, in collaboration with Byron Kim

Text from piece: "Everything that the so-called Negro do in America seem to be the best, the greatest. So what's wrong with him saying he is the greatest when everything in America that has been painted and colored white. Like, Jesus is white. Santa Claus is white. Tarzan, King of the Jungle, he's white. miss Universe is white. Miss World is white. When you go to Heaven you walk on a milky white way. Before you go to Heaven you walk on a milky white way. Before you go to Heaven you washed in lamb's blood, he's white as snow, they say. They teach us in T. V. commercials: there's White House Cigars, White Swan Soap, White Cloud Tissue Paper, White Rain Hair Rinse, White Tornado Floor Wax. Everything seems to be white: I'm dreaming of a white Christmas; angel hair is white; angel food cake is white and devil's food cake is dark; and Mary had a little lamb, his fleece was white as snow. So everything the greatest so far has been white and these are just falsehoods of white supremacy. So now that we have a man in America today, Elijah Muhammad, who teaches us that we are the greatest, and it is a fact they cannot prove that we are not the greatest, so I don't see why the need for commotion and the trouble over people are saying that they're the greatest, what's wrong with that? So if you the greatest, you just the greatest until proven wrong." - Muhammad Ali

Four Untitled Etchings, 1992

I'm particularly interested in how this piece was made because of the texture and how it goes from refined to unrefined. This is something I'd like to emulate in my work.

Condition Report, 2000

I like this piece because it fully reflects the process.

Impediment, 2006

Untitled (If I Can’t Have Love, I’ll Take Sunshine), 2006

Zio Ziegler

Zio Ziegler

http://www.zioziegler.com/

Zio Ziegler is a San Francisco Bay Area artist who is influenced by Eastern philosophy, French modernism, Egyptology, Xavier Veilhan, Auguste Rodin, Thomas Houseago, Eddy Martinez and Georges Braque. He says that painting is an, “attempt at self-understanding. I create an experience for the viewer that parallels my own search in creation. This process, my examination, is a constant balance between reason and intuition. I make in order to understand, rather to explain what has been made.”

Zio does a lot of outdoor instillations in the form of a mural.  Ziegler “draws with his paintbrush rather than paints with it.” I am inspired by some of the figures that he makes that look like they are human. He often shows movement and motion through the figures that he draws. His use of color is also something that I would like to try; he uses a lot of color and he doesn’t necassiraly pick colors that look good together. When you step back from the painting, the use of color still has a cohesive look.

I feel a connection to him because he grew up in Mill Valley, which is where I live and attending the same middle school. I have seen Mill Valley slowly be decorated by Zio’s art. Zio came and talked to Marin Country Day School and did a mural on one of the campus walls. When I asked him how he developed a style that ended up being large and epic, he answered that he just started small. He started by working on small designs and eventually he built up his technique and style to what it is now.

http://www.ianrossgallery.com/artists/zio-ziegler/