Category Archives: painting

Frida Kahlo, and Me, at MoMA

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Me with Frida in Fulang-Chang and I

I took this picture at the MoMA the other day. I really do LIKE Frida Kahlo, even while I think she is over hyped. Fulang-Chang and I depicts Kahlo with one of her pet monkeys. The painting was included in the first major exhibition of her work in New York in 1938 to much attention. Later Kahlo gave the painting to her close friend Mary Sklar, attaching a mirror to it so that, if Sklar chose, the two friends could be together.

And of course, I love inserting myself into other people’s art; see Pistoletti and Kiki Smith.

Image from the museum’s website, so you can see the painting better:

Genius: Vegetable Heads ala Photoshop and Mannerism

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Linnea’s Melonhead

As you can probably tell from my melonhead, I am the child prodigy of my Intro to Photoshop course I started last night. Last night’s assignment was to take all these different fruit and veggies and make them into a melonhead, in a file named–at my teacher’s insistence–“Linnea’s Melonhead.” Hmmm.

Obviously, I’m not good at all, which is why I am taking the course. If I was good, I would have found a way to split the kiwi mouth into upper and lower lip and turned them into animated gifs that moved up and down like he was talking.

In the great tradition of melon and other cruciferous heads, mine doesn’t rank next to these:

Summer by Giuseppe Archimboldo, as are those below

Autumn
Man in the Vegetables

I think Man in the Vegetables is probably my favorite of these bizarre works, with his sly peeping expression, but this angular, incredibly modern-seeming man of books is also amazing when you think that Arcimboldo painted it in 1566:

Mark Alsweiler: Folk art gone contemporary

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Carrion Crows

I’m trying to remember just how I came across these fantastic paintings by New Zealand artist Mark Alsweiler, but as I can’t, let me just say I feel lucky I did. They remind me of much of art I saw in Mexico, and like most folk art often suggest a narrative, but the palette strikes me as particularly contemporary.

Different Times

I’m also impressed by the sophisticated way he uses folk elements without “talking down to them,” so to speak. Symmetry and balance play a role in that I suspect–as does a judicious use of blank space.

The Bigsky Web

The use of white in the paintings above and below feels so refreshing.

Sitting Down by the Fire

Horseman
This piece, with its skeleton on horseback riding next to the living man, reminds me of Mexican art most clearly.More than anything, I end up feeling fascinated and lingering over details in these pieces, wondering what the story behind them is.