Blog Entry: John Currin

John Currin, an American painter, who depicts mainly women with distorted features. His works are satirical and very often erotic. At first glance they are sexist, but (I believe) it's one of those cases that attacks sexism by being sexist: by pointing out the absurdity of how the media portraits as the attractiveness of women, and how women are seen as sexual objects. 

It's fairly easy to tell that Currin's work is influenced by many things. Some of the women in his painting look like Renaissance figures, and sometimes the elongation of certain features is reminiscent of Mannerism paintings. A lot of them are also inspired by popular culture and contemporary fashion models.

Blog Entry: Dong Yang-Zi

Dong Yang-Zi is one of the few calligraphers whose works genuinely amazed me. I remember seeing this calligrapher in a documentary on television a while ago. Today I decided to look at her works more closely. The above picture shows the words, literally translated, "having fun/ being happy alone."

I feel like she really took the forms of our characters and executed them like no other. Her brush strokes are natural and flowing but very powerful. A lot of her works are almost abstract. Her composition was influenced by Western art as a result of her studies in America. She likes to write large on huge papers.

There is a story about a famous, ancient Chinese calligrapher, Wang Xi-Zhi, who washed his brushes in a lake beside where he lived. He practiced writing so much that the water of the lake turned black and could be used as ink. It was also said that he was obsessed with geese and learned to write from the way geese swam. 
One of his son, Wang Xian-Zhi, who was also a calligrapher, had another interesting story. The little Xian-Zhi wanted to surpass his father. He worked extremely hard and used up three vats of ink to practice. He finally wrote the character "big" that he felt very proud of and showed his father. His father saw it, grabbed a brush, and added a tiny stroke, thus changing the character to another word. Xian-Zhi then showed the word to his mother, who commented, "My son used up three vats of water practicing, but only this dot resembles Xi-Zhi."
One can only imagine his face upon hearing that criticism.

Dong Yang-Zi was once part of this art show that took reference from the stories. They literally filled a lake of ink.

The people that came to the show could sit around the ink lake and write.

Here are some more of Dong Yang-Zi's works that I love.