Inside the Art Studio of Marisa Merz
Marisa Merz was an Italian artist, born in Turin. Merz had a long and prolific career, beginning in the 1950s and 60s during which time she was the only female member of the Arte Povera movement. Arte Povera (translated to English as “poor art”) was a radical artistic movement that stood in opposition to the hierarchical, capitalist nature of the art industry of the era.
Throughout her career, Merz worked in a variety of…
Inside the Art Studio of Karel Appel
Today’s Studio Sunday artist is Karel Appel. Appel was born in Amsterdam in 1921, and started painting at the age of 14, before studying at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. The artist was known for his avant-garde paintings and sculptures that combined vivid primary colours with strong, wild line art and abstracted figures.
Appel’s studio here looks slightly chaotic, which seems suitable for the overall tone of his…
Inside the Art Studio of Jay DeFeo
Our Studio Sunday feature today is California artist Jay DeFeo. DeFeo was associated with the beat generation, and was connected to the literary and musical aspects of the time period, as well as visual arts. DeFeo studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and later in Europe, before moving back to California and working in a studio space in Oakland.
The space pictured above seems almost sparse -- the artist’s…
Inside the Art Studio of Amy Bennett
Our studio Sunday feature this week is Amy Bennett. Bennett is an American artist whose artworks bridge the gap between sculpture and painting, with a conceptual focus on the darkly humorous narratives found in modern suburbia. To create her narrative paintings, Bennett constructs highly detailed dioramas to use as reference for numerous works, changing small elements of scenery and figure to suit the story she wishes to tell.…
Inside the Art Studio of Ed Clark
Our Studio Sunday feature this week is Ed Clark. Clark is an American painter widely associated with the abstract expressionist movement of the 1950s and 60s. The artist has enjoyed a long career -- as of 2019 he has been creating paintings for over 60 years. Clark was born in New Orleans, relocated to Chicago as a child, studied art in Paris, and later moved to New York.
There’s something about this studio photograph that…
Inside the Art Studio of Jillian Mayer
Miami, Florida-based artist Jillian Mayer works in a range of media, creating everything from static sculptures and installations to video art and online experiences. Mayer’s varied practice demands a studio where a variety of different activities and techniques coexist in a unique space.
The artist’s studio looks wonderfully colourful and bright in this photograph. Mayer herself is hard at work on something -- it’s…
Inside the Art Studio of Gloria Vanderbilt
In this week’s Studio Sunday, we’re looking inside the studio of Gloria Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is perhaps best known as a New York socialite, heir to a railroad fortune, but she is also a long-time appreciator of the arts and an artist herself. Throughout her long artistic career, the artist has produced works of traditional painting, as well as more contemporary explorations into sculpture and mixed media.
Vanderbilt’s…
Inside the Art Studio of Lu Yang
Today’s Studio Sunday artist is Lu Yang. Yang, a Chinese artist, creates work informed by hyper-modern pop culture, including virtual reality, manga, toys, and cyberpunk ephemera. Mainly working in digital video formats, the artist produces work through a meditative process, sometimes inserting avatars for herself into the strange narratives that she creates.
Yang’s studio looks at once familiar and bizarre -- there are…
Inside the Art Studio of Lorna Simpson
Our Studio Sunday artist this week is Lorna Simpson. Simpson has been a renowned artist since the 1980s and 90s, producing works in photography and multimedia, as well as more traditional means. The artist’s works are often narrative, and present honest meditations on feminism, black identity, history, and collective memory. Simpson currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.
Simpson’s studio looks quite bright and airy…
Inside the Art Studio of Alan Bean
This week’s studio feature is Alan Bean. Bean was an astronaut and aviator by trade, with a love of art that he pursued outside of his aerospace career. Later in his life, Bean’s artistic creations were inspired by his time in space, with the artist often painting astronauts as subjects, and using tools and materials from space in the works themselves.
We can’t see too much of the artist’s studio in this photo -- it looks…
Inside the Art Studio of Kate MccGwire
Kate MccGwire is an English artist who works with unusual materials including bird bones and feathers. The artist’s sculptural works often deal with notions of binaries and contrasts -- beauty and disgust, chaos and calm, life and death, among others. In her current practice, the artist sticks mostly to avian materials, collected from the ground or from the owners of racing pigeons.
MccGuire’s studio is on a boat -- a Dutch…
Inside the Art Studio of Luchita Hurtado
Luchita Hurtado was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1920, before moving to the United States. She lived in New York briefly before moving to Mexico City and later returning to American to live in Los Angeles. In her artistic practice, Luchita is known for bright paintings and mixed media works that often portray a headless female figure.
The artist’s works are clearly visible in her studio space -- in fact, the wall behind Hurtado…
Inside the Art Studio of Cheng Ran
Cheng Ran is a conceptual artist currently located in Hangzhou, China. The artist works primarily in film, creating artworks that are frequently inspired by literature, cinema, and Western pop culture, as well as more esoteric ideas such as mythology.
Cheng’s studio here certainly gives the appearance of a space that’s used more for conceptual artworks than for physical constructions. Many of the artist’s works utilize…
Inside the Art Studio of Lee Krasner
Painter Lee Krasner was born in Brooklyn and lived and worked in New York City throughout her life and career. The artist became known for her contributions to the American abstract expressionist movement of the 1950s and 60s. Many of her works featured collaged elements with wild, confident brush marks.
This photo of Krasner’s studio paints it as quite an expansive space, with plenty of room for the kind of energetic imagery…
Inside the Art Studio of Mary Corse
Mary Corse is an artist living and working in Topanga, California. In her practice, Corse is known for large-scale monochromatic and dichromatic paintings. Many of her paintings are solid white, but utilize different finishes and gloss coatings to achieve a specific relationship to the lighting of a space.
I enjoy the aesthetic of Corse’s studio here -- the vast, all-white canvases might seem cold at first, but the overall…