The famous ones
I started this list as a challenge to myself really. I began thinking about women artists and was shocked that I got as far as Tracey Enim and then my mind just went blank. I looked up a few more names on google and added a few more to the list: Jenny Saville, Yayoi Kusama, Brigette Riley and Maggi Hambling. They were important and interesting but I couldn’t honestly say they particularly influenced my work although I love the colours that Riley and Kusama use in their pieces.
I do really like the work of Rachel Whiteread who makes massive casts of the interiors of buildings and other unexpected objects like hot water bottles. She would have been part of Swansea’s UK City of Culture events in 2021.
Then I looked at my pinterest account and realised that it was jammed packed with contemporary female painters. Some I just like and others that inspire me. They are not especially famous but I thought I’d share their names and examples of their work.
The Americans
Pochinski has a wonderful fluid style. Such energy and confidence to leave so much undefined.
I love her use of colour and light colour. Since October 5th, 2006, she has been creating one small painting almost every day.
Again wonderful colours and impressionistic looseness of style that I find very appealing.
A much tighter “stylised” form of painting but that same use of strong colours and emphasis on sunshine.
Again strong colurs, sunshine and an interest in mid-century buildings.
She also does a lot of paintings of Airstream trailers but I don’t care so much for those paintings. Although they are technically excellent, I find them less interesting as subject matter.
So, I think you can see that I am somewhat obsessed with sunshine and colour! I will also write a blog on living British female artists that I like.
Interesting post, it has made me think of Australian women artists who I am inspired by. Rosalie Gascoigne, Emily Kgwarreye, Margaret Preston, Grace Cossington-Smith, Clarice Beckett (the last 3 early to mid 20th century), Jenny Sages, Nalda Searles. There’s a massive list.
Visited a major Yayoi Kusama exhibition only a few weeks ago.
Off the the Art Gallery of South Australia this morning and am looking forward to another Modernist artist, Dorrit Black’s lino cuts.
Oh thank you. You have given my a whole load of artists to explore.
Interesting post, emma! I agree with you about Carole Marine, I recently got her daily painting book, she’s very inspiring! Others I would include on MY list would be Mary Cassatt (very famous Pennsylvanian painter born in 1844) Cicely Mary Barker, Margaret W. Tarrant, Beatrix Potter…oh and recently I got a book by Bev Lee, she is right in my area of interest with her lovely, candid, portraits of children 😉
Thank you for that – Mary Cassatt did many beautiful intimate paintings. I had no idea that she was American! That make me feel quite stupid. I grew up with Cicely Mary Baker’s flower fairies and Beatrix Potter’s tales. They are magical and entrancing. Margaret W Tarrant looks like illustrations I have seen as a child in the “ladybird” books. Bev Lee is new to me what what lovely paintings she does!
If I am remembering correctly, I think Mary Cassatt did spend a LOT of time in Europe 😉 – I just like the fact that she is local, for me (I’m a Brit living just out of Philadelphia) and her work is so wonderful – all of it! 🙂
Georgia O’Keefe? I love this quote of hers.” I decided I was a very stupid fool not to at least paint as I wanted to. That seemed to be the only thing I could do that didn’t concern anybody but myself.”
Oh yes. She is certainly an inspiration. I was focusing on living artists just to simplify things. There was a time when I would only look at the work of artists who had been dead for at least 70 years!!
Haha! Well i think it is very good to focus on artists who are still creating. O’Keefe just sprang to my mind.
Wat een indrukwekkende reeks artisten die me ook wel aanspreken.
Thank you
Another one or two. A visit to a second hand bookshop on Christmas Eve yielded Kaethe Kollwitz’s Letters and Diaries and also a wonderful hardcover exhibition catalogue (1960’s) of Berthe Morissot, such exquisite pastels and watercolours.
Thanks Leonie – I will have to have a blog on top 20 deceased female artists too!
wat een prachtwerk
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