Today, I’m introducing John Currin, one of the most renowned contemporary American artists. His paintings simultaneously evoke laughter and admiration, blending coarse elements of popular culture with the refinement of high art. This contrast grabs attention and elicits mixed feelings of disgust and fascination. 🙂
There are artists who cannot draw a person without a reference. A reference can be in the form of a photograph or having the person sitting in front of them as they draw/paint them from life. But take away the reference and ask them to draw from memory—nothing comes out. Most of us don’t retain a clear picture in our memory, especially not the details that are unimportant to us but important to recreate an image on the canvas. However, there are artists who don’t need a reference because they already have an image in their head and just need to transfer it to the canvas. All the artists above can be divided into those who know and use anatomy and those who don’t need it much, as their task is simply to transfer color patches from their head to the painting, and if done accurately, everything falls into place. The academic approach is to reconstruct the structure and then overlay the color patches. In practice, it all happens simultaneously, but nevertheless, there are “academists” and “visuals” (terms I coined for lack of better ones). Artists specializing in caricature must master all these skills at the highest level. They obviously don’t copy references (model or photograph) but build a structure distorted in just the right way to produce the desired impression.
Technically, John Currin is not a caricaturist. Although his paintings may include grotesque and satirical elements, they are done in a classical style and with high quality. This creates a contrast that elicits strong emotions from viewers.
Another observation: some artists find a style and start “churning out” a whole series in it, likely because it sells well. An example is Laurent Parcelier. I don’t make separate posts about such artists, though they are certainly talented. It’s just boring; all of Laurent’s paintings are “the same,” with sunlight filtering through leaves to form a pattern on the wall of a Mediterranean house. It’s much more interesting when an artist’s style is hidden deeper, in technique rather than in the ability to convey one thing.
I remind you that similar posts are grouped under the tag #artrauflikes, and on beinginamerica.com in the “Art Rauf Likes” section, all 68 (at the moment) are available (unlike Facebook, which forgets (ignores) almost half).
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 