Artists I Like Right Now

I'm taking a break from talking about my art and taiko. It's important to see what else is going on out there, I truly believe that.

I'm really interested in two artists right now, that other people have introduced me to. One is Henry Evans, a botanical printmaker. I love how expressive and how simple his work is.

I love what he has to say about choosing subjects:

"Within any given range of subject matter, the artist can usually find, as I have, an enormous assortment of individual subjects to draw. For reasons not too easy to explain, some subjects are more appealing to the public than others. Equally mysteriously, when an artist is drawn to a subject, and perhaps puts more of himself into it, the public tends to respond more deeply, more enthusiastically. Some sort of mutual-encouragement syndrome seems to develop. When you manage to convey your all-too-human feeling in a work of art, certain people who see it will vicariously experience some of the intensity of your involvment and will become absorbed by, and possessive of, what you have done. When this is combined with a very familiar or sentimentally loaded subject, the response is even stronger and the desire to possess the picture seems to increase."

I understand this, but only through experience. The less I worry about what I think others would like to see and just think about what I want to happen in my art, the more people seem to respond to it.


Also, talking about the process of cutting and fitting blocks:

"I sometimes look at the work of other artist in galleries, museums, and friends' homes. Much of it seems intentionally casual, and I confess I am sometimes a little envious of the happy carelessness of other artists. I am quite convinced that there is some virtue in "good clean work," but I'm not sure I could tell you exactly what it is. The artist must listen to the voice inside him. Mine seems to abhor carelessness. The voice is always there, so I guess that's the way it has to be."

(From Henry Evans Botanical Prints: With Exerpts From the Artist's Notebooks, 1977 - Thank you Megan!)

The other artist that I like instinctually, but have to find out more about is Rex Ray.



Do investigations into other people's work, to find out more about your own.