style

so i want to be messier.  i can do cluttered, and the somewhat cliche methods of messy - drips and splatters and blobs.  but those tricks are like wearing 80s clothes, you have to be really careful about how far you go with it or else it could start looking like a joke.

so for some brainstorming...

jenny saville.

nice.  a bit too ... sharp?  i like that the shadows and planes of the faces are scattered, but i was thinking more of the outlines too.  the background moving in over the foreground and that sort of thing.

yan pei-ming.

more towards the break-the-outline end, but the brushstrokes are too monotonous.  really impressive that the contours of the face can be expressed with such repetitive marks, but i guess i have something more chaotic in mind - in some respects, at least.

hung liu.

closer, closer.  especially with the random objects that are intertwined with and around the figures.  and the vague, stylized background is nice too - suggestive of just enough things that you can't quite tell which one it is.  although the outlines of the figures are back to being pretty solid.



maybe these two forms of chaos - of form un-definition and plane messiness - don't work well together.  but i'd like them to, somehow...

al farrow.

ok, so i came across him by accident while looking for a good egon schiele example, and like this better - at least, for this topic.  mainly because it's sculpture and still looks messy and like it might get you covered in paint if you touch it.

really effing great artist.  happy find.

frank auerbach.

so he has paintings that work for this too, but i'm always a bit partial to a good quick sketch.

also, is it just me or are painters from the 30s and 40s some of the easiest to identify?  really, their color palettes alone give them away.  i don't know what it is.



alright.  well.  no bingo yet.  i'll keep perusing.