Stella's Art Blog

Fiona Foley is a contemporary Indigenous Australian artist who specializes in sculpture. Her work features subjects such as race and racial hatred. She has a series titled "HHH- Hedonistic Honky Haters", were her response to the KKK. John Mawurndjal is another Indigenous Australian artist, however, he specialized in painting. His artwork reflects subjects like spiritual and cultural values.  Both artists focus on things such as culture, but Fiona's work is more on racial misconceptions while John's artwork is more focused on celebrating the culture. 

Aboriginal paintings are a style of paintings that originated from the Australian Aboriginal people. These paintings use a specific style of patterns involving tightly packed dots that create beautiful designs.  Colors used for  Aboriginal   art were made from natural materials. For example, ochre or iron clay pigments being used to produce colors such as white, yellow, red and black from charcoal. These paintings usually display important cultural messages of the Aboriginal people. 

An artist who I enjoy is Shiyoon Kim. Kim is a character designer and concept artist best know for his work on animated films such as Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, and Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse.  He's worked for film companies including Walt Disney Animation Studios and Sony Pictures Animation, as well as doing his own independent work. His designs and pieces are incredibly inspiring to me, and they push me to want to become better at character illustration.

Kehinde Wiley is a New York City-based portrait artist whose main focus of work is on depicting black people in leafy natural environments. Wiley challenges the stereotypes of black masculinity in America by creating vibrant, natural environments for his subjects to be seen in. Wiley is best known for his painting done of former president Barack Obama, who commissioned the piece to be his presidential portrait.

Frida Kahlo's portraiture work often featured herself as the subject matter. She painted realistic versions of herself, usually surrounded by plants and animals, with a neutral face expression. She got into her portraiture work as her health was deteriorating, which could be a reason why the mood of the paintings seem somber. Despite the bright colors and fantastical settings, Frida's expressions give the paintings as a whole a gloomy mood. Rembrandt created around 100 portraits of himself in his lifetime, each one done very realistically and portraying an uncanny likeness to his actual self. Unlike Kahlo's work,  Rembrandt painted what he saw, not adding anything extra to his paintings other than what was actually there. His work is more realistic with less of a personal flair added to it. Pablo Picasso started off his life doing realistic self portraits, which gradually evolved into more unique and psychedelic pieces as he grew older. Picasso became ...

Allyson Grey is an artist, writer, and sculptor born in 1952 with a Fine Art master's degree from Tufts University. Her work is very unique and colorful, displaying a variety of psychedelic patterns. Rainbows are a prevalent theme in her work. She also hides secret writing in her work, creating an unseen chaos that only people who know of the secrets in her work are able to decipher. Grey created a secret language which she often peppers into her artwork. Some principals of art that she uses include color, pattern, and composition.

Carolyn Lawrence is an African American visual artist born in 1940 who is best known for her colorful works with profound social messages integrated into them. Shape/form and color are prevalent in her work, as she uses bright geometric shapes to create her pieces. Her use of color expresses emotions in her pieces, creating a lively and enticing composition that draws the viewer in. Her works communicate heavy subjects such as social injustices, but she creates an exciting and unique way to express it and bring attention to these issues.