10.Joan Mitchell
(Image above)
Her work was abstract, lyrical and panoramic in her use of multiple large canvases. She left her edges open and experimented with brush strokes and form. The work was highly disruptive – she used rags, her fingers, several different brushes, lines like wires and patches like fine mist. Joan suffered from Synesthesia –in her case the association of colour with taste – which she used as a visual language. You can see it when you analyze the patterns of her paintings. I am absolutely obsessed with her work.
11.Helen Frankenthaler
Like Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler was an action painter. She would lay out huge pieces of cut canvas and pour large amounts of paint onto the canvas beneath her. She felt the canvas was more freeing without the restriction of its being attached to the frame. She used big sweeping shapes that touch and open, and sit upon. Coastal Massachusetts deeply influenced her work, with its summer hues. The landscapes and sea shores were her muses, as they are to me.
“Colour is a tricky word, when it works it implies light, and dark things can look light, with light things looking dead when it doesn’t work.”
“Beautiful is a tricky word because it has become incendiary. Because in many ways today beauty has become obsolete. It is not the main concern of art, you cannot prove beauty, it gives no specific message.” -quotations from a 1990’s TV interview
12.Cy Twombly
He did predominantly large, freely scribbled, calligraphic and graffiti-like works on solid fields of mostly grey, tan, or off white colours. He developed a technique of gestural drawing that was characterized by thin white lines on a dark canvas, and he used text and writing as part of his composition. Twombly incorporated quotes from poets like Rainer Maria Rilke and John Keats, and often inscribed the names of mythological figures in his work. I find inspiration in the way he uses line in his compositions.
13.Richard Diebenkorn
I know that I have liked this man’s work for a long time, but researching him made that so much more clear. There is an intelligence in the way he constructed his compositions that is experimental and I am drawn to that. He came from the San Francisco Bay Area Figurative Movement. Doing abstract geometric expressionism, colour field painting and lyrical abstraction, his style bridged Henri Matisse and Abstract Expressionism with his subject matter, which included: interiors, landscapes, still lifes, as well as the human figure. His work evoked the shimmering light and wide open space of California, where he spent most of his life. His Ocean Park series would be what he is most known for and I am very inspired by his experimental nature.
14.Clyfford Still
Still was credited for laying the groundwork for the Abstract Expressionist movement with his powerful post-war approach to painting. He was considered one of the foremost Colour Field painters, his non-figurative paintings are non-objective and largely concerned with juxtaposing different colours and surfaces in a variety of formations. His large works recall natural forms and natural phenomena at their most intense and mysterious: caves, stalagmites, caverns, foliage - seen in both darkness and light.
I enjoy Still's line and edgwork - they remind me of the rippled edge of an antique rose.
15.David Hockney
I first saw Hockney’s work when I went to the TATE modern in London for the first time.
I was immediately struck by his innocent response to the modern world. His work is spiced with humour and set down with an outstanding graphic talent, and true English charm. As a half British person, I’ve grown an affinity for that charm after visiting the UK many times. Hockney incorporates references to film and pop culture, while contributing a nearly abstract nature to what is otherwise a vividly figurative work by exploring the formal language and visual appeal of advertising. I find his grandiose treatment of light and color to be similar to my current series of Flower Vases on Stripy Backgrounds.
16.Alice Rich
Alice Rich has been an inspiration to me for a long time. My series Mental Landscapes is influenced by her approach to breaking up her landscapes into different environments using a linear plane to aid in the balance of the composition. She refers to herself as a “semi-abstract painter”, using a long stroke technique with her brushwork of water, the sky, the ftheield, and grass. She blends colour families together, similar to the approach of Monet. I find her work exquisite and intellectual, and feelings of inward contemplation wash over me when I gaze at her beach scenes. I am eternally grateful for her, and look up to her as a female painter. She lives here in Vancouver, and runs Gallery 13 on Granville Island where she exhibits her work. I had the pleasure of meeting this talented and kind artist to whom I owe so much.
17.Bobbie Burgers
Burgers lives and works out of the Okanagan where I grew up. She is a highly successful floral abstract painter. Her works exudes a confidence, not just by their size, but also her thick use of paint, and how the flowers seem to be exploding or thrown about the air with their many petals floating down. I enjoy her abstract compositions where the stem and leaf are not acknowledged. It is almost as if the flowers themselves have a powerful voice. My series The Well Socialized Gardener takes influence from her style.
18. Gillian Theobald
I first discovered Gillian Theobald on Pinterest a couple years ago. Perhaps Pinterest started realizing my tastes and threw her into my feed, who knows? Theobald is from Seattle where she is still active. She uses the language of landscape painting in the context of abstraction, which is a theme I find very interesting. She builds a meditative, slow space using families of colour playing off each other in something like a call and response. The paintings’ colour schemes are reminiscent of fabric prints from the 1960’s and 70’s. I use a similar abstract approach when developing my landscape work.
19. Kerri Rosenthal
Rosenthal is a different kind of inspiration for me, because she is a self-made artist turned business woman – turning her art into a successful home decor company. Her art itself is quite simple, using an optimistic colour palette with neutrals and juxtaposing patterns. The forms are airy, floral, loose and there is a childlike innocence that I am drawn too. There is a spiritedness to her work that is so pleasant to look at, and it evokes a maternal side of me that I dont tap into very often. She is an artist I pin frequently on Pinterest. As basket weaving has become an important aspect of my practice, I take inspirationfrom Rosenthal's career path.
20. Erin Gregory
Erin is an acrylic painter, like myself, who paints daily in her home studio, also like myself. Her focus is on emphasizing contrast and variety within the composition, while vividly capturing the light and colouring of her subject – whether it be a still life, figurative or abstract. Her objective is to capture the contrasting nature of sunlight and shadow, and to bring it to life with vivid colour and brushwork. I love her intelligent use of colour and her abstract notions of shape, angles and movement. She inspries me to take my flowers in jar compositions to new places.
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