Chaos and Awe Artists Summary 2018
Ghada Amer: Ghada Amer (b. 1963) is a contemporary artist who lives in New York City. Amer emigrated from Egypt when she was a child. Her artwork primarily deals with sexuality, gender expression, feminism, and Islamic culture. Her canvases combine different textures such as needlework and painting. Amer was educated in Paris and often addresses female desire in her artwork.
Ahmed Alsoudani: Ahmed Alsoudani was born in Iraq in 1975. Alsoudani grew up around tumultuous war-like conditions and he is interested in violence and intercultural connections. He finds inspiration from Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, and Francis Bacon. Alsoudani’s paintings are psychological, surreal, and graphic, but with elements of whimsy, light-heartedness, and cartoon. He holds an MFA in painting from Yale University and his work has been featured in the Venice Biennale.
Radcliffe Bailey: Radcliffe Bailey (b. 1968) works and lives in Atlanta, GA, and his work has been featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Bailey, through both painting and sculpture, explores themes of race, memory, and history. Bailey was born in New Jersey.
Ali Banisadr: Ali Banisadr was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1976 and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. He moved to the U.S. during childhood and he explores displacement, memory, and nostalgia through his abstract paintings. Banisadr’s paintings are full of color and chaos and some works are inspired by his memory of windows shattering from bombs while living in Iran. His works explore the connection between memory and visualization.
Matti Braun: Matti Braun is a German artist born in 1968 who lives and works in Cologne, Germany. Braun’s work explores the relationship between culture, migration, and communication. His artwork includes textile, objects, photography, and painting.
Dean Byington: Dean Byington is an American artist born in 1958. Byington received his MFA from UC Berkeley and is an Eisner Prize fellowship participant. His paintings include fine line, shading, and color as he depicts landscapes of destruction and human impact. Byington worked with painter Joan Brown, who was associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement and Beat culture.
Barnaby Furnas: Barnaby Furnas is an American artist born in 1973 who started his artistic career with graffiti art. Furnas lives and works in New York City. His artwork consists of geometric and organic shapes, and deals with issues of history, myth, and religion. Furnas uses tactile elements such as burning and splattering in his paintings.
Ellen Gallagher: Ellen Gallagher is an American artist born in 1965 who studied at School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Her work includes revisioning advertisements published in African-American focused magazines. Gallagher works with painting, film, and video and has been featured in the Whitney Biennale and Venice Biennale. Gallagher’s art often mixes minimalism, abstraction, and images to form a narrative of how society historically views African-Americans, including influences from the Harlem Renaissance and the history of blackface and minstrel shows.
Anoka Faruqee: Anoka Faruqee is an American painter born in 1972 who currently teaches art at Yale University. Faruqee’s paintings use elements of psychedelic color, patterns, and math to disorient and engage. Faruqee received an MFA from the Tyler School of Art and has taught at School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the California Institute of the Arts. Her canvases include multiple layers of paint, which creates an uneven texture.
Wayne Gonzales: Wayne Gonzales is an American artist born in New Orleans in 1957. His paintings, including subjects of crowds, technology, and architecture, explore the connection between photography, history, and memory. His paintings are both social and political, including a work with images of the John F. Kennedy assassination. Gonzales lives and works in New York City and his artwork has been featured internationally and locally.
Guillermo Kuitca: Guillermo Kuitca is an Argentine artist born in 1961 who works and lives in Buenos Aires. His paintings feature intricate detail and contrasting shapes to address issues of geometry, travel, and migration. Kuitca often uses maps in his work, including painting maps onto mattresses, to explore the abstract and representational quality of maps. Kuitca’s work has been featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Venice Biennale.
Wangechi Mutu: Wangechi Mutu is a Kenyan artist born in 1972 who works and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Mutu’s mediums include sculpture, painting, video, and performance. Her artwork features the female form, with abstract lines and specific objects such as high heels and lip and hair texture. Mutu’s works explore self-image, violence, and misrepresentation of black women and she has been featured in museums such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Gallery in London.
James Perrin: James Perrin is an American artist born in Tennessee in 1975 who works and lives in Nashville. His artwork has been featured in Venice, Boston, and Nashville, including the 2014 Abstractometry exhibit at the Frist. Perrin’s paintings feature sensory elements, abstraction, and dimension to address issues of communication, history, time, and culture.
Neo Rauch: Neo Rauch is a German artist born in 1960 whose works explore themes of industrialization, politics, and history. His paintings are reminiscent of Surrealist and Neoclassicist artwork and are inspired by his memory of East Germany during the Cold War. His work has been featured in Germany, Austria, Canada, and the U.S., including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Dannielle Tegeder: Dannielle Tegeder is an American artist born in 1971 who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Her artwork has been featured by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and internationally. Tegeder’s paintings feature negative space, abstraction, line work, and geometry. In addition to painting, Tegeder works with installation, animation, and sound.
Corinne Wasmuht: Corinne Wasmuht is a German artist born in 1964 whose works address issues of globalization, technology, warfare, and economic crisis. Wasmuht’s oil paintings feature color, jagged shapes to explore urban architecture and city landscapes. Her artwork has been featured in Amsterdam, Madrid, Berlin, New York, and Ohio.
Sue Williams: Sue Williams is an American artist born in 1954 whose works address feminism, sexuality, and LGBT issues. Williams’s artwork has been featured in the Whitney Biennial, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Vienna Secession. William’s paintings include images of body parts combined with architecture and abstract shapes to confront issues of sexual violence and emotional abuse.
Charline von Heyl: Charline von Heyl is a German artist born in 1960 who lives and works in New York and Texas. Von Heyl uses collages in her paintings as well as spray paint, ink, and photocopies to push the boundaries of the practice of painting. Her work has been featured in galleries such as the Dallas Museum of Art and the Tate Liverpool in England.
Wade Guyton: Wade Guyton is an American artist born in 1972 who received degrees in art from the University of Tennessee and Hunter College. Guyton’s artwork includes large canvases, digital imagery, and distortion to explore issues of technology and society. Guyton’s artwork has been featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as internationally.
Franz Ackermann: Franz Ackermann is a German artist born in 1963 whose artwork features abstract cartoon, Cubism, and color to confront issues of globalization and commercial waste. His artwork has been featured in galleries such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Venice Biennale.
Korakrit Arunondchai: Korakrit Arunondchai is a Thai artist born in 1986 whose works include painting, film, music, and performance. Arunondchai uses neon lights, paint, mannequins, and fabrics in his artwork to explore themes of history and self-identity. Arunondchai’s artwork has been featured at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as well as galleries in Tokyo, Mexico City, and Paris.
Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga: Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga is an African artist born in 1991 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Illunga started “M’Pongo,” a group of young artists looking for an individual style of artwork. Ilunga’s artwork includes bright colors and themes of music, dance, and fashion. His artwork has been featured in galleries in Senegal, London, and New York and includes different textures and patterns, exploring themes of colonialism, violence, and cultural independence.
Heather Gwen Martin: Heather Gwen Martin is a Canadian artist born in 1977 whose artwork features curvature, abstract shapes, bright colors that simultaneously stimulate and disturb. Martin lives and works in Los Angeles, CA, and she studied at the University of California in San Diego and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her artwork has been exhibited in Chicago, California, and New York.
Jiha Moon: Jiha Moon is a Korean artist born in 1973 who currently lives and works in Atlanta, GA. Using painting, printmaking, and ceramics, Moon’s style is abstract, blending colors, cartoons, and traditional Eastern images to create complex collages that explore themes of migration and cross-cultural interactions. Moon’s artwork has been exhibited at the Cheekwood Museum in Nashville as well as galleries in Washington, D.C. and Georgia.
Nogah Engler: Nogah Engler is an Israeli artist born in 1970 who lives and works in London. Her paintings depict physical landscapes of beauty and deterioration as she examines themes of cultural upheaval, cycles of nature, and the fragility of memory. Engler studied at Tel Aviv University in Israel and the Chelsea School of Art in London and her works have been exhibited in London, Leeds, China, Israel, and Columbus, Ohio. Multiple works are inspired by her grandfather’s escape of Nazi deathcamps during the Holocaust.
Kazuki Umezawa: Kazuki Umezawa is a Japanese artist born in 1985 whose artwork features color, explosive collages, and digital images of Anime characters and pop culture icons. Umezawa lives and works in Tokyo and his artwork envisions modern day Japan and how technology and media influence Japanese cultural identity.
Sarah Walker: Sarah Walker is an American artist born in 1963 whose abstract paintings depict complex shapes that are simultaneously organic, scientific, and technological in their design. Walker studied at the University of North Carolina and the California College of the Arts. Her works have been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Indianapolis, and Pennsylvania.
Hamlett Dobbins: Hamlett Dobbins is a native Tennessee artist born in 1970 who grew up in Memphis. His abstract paintings feature multiple shapes with different textures, colors, and sizes to express life’s incommunicable moments. Dobbins has taught at University of Mississippi, Memphis College of Art, University of Iowa, University of Memphis, and Rhodes College. In 2013, Dobbins received the Rome Prize award and worked as a fellow at the American Academy in Rome.
Rashid Johnson: Rashid Johnson is an American artist born in 1977 whose artwork is influenced by African-American history, science, and mysticism. Many of his pieces envision an alternate history for African-Americans and redefine cultural notions of race and identity. Johnson’s artwork, including photography, video, sculpture, and painting, has been exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Seattle.
Pedro Barbeito: Pedro Barbeito is a contemporary artist born in Spain in 1969 who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Barbeito’s artwork includes digital imagery to evoke geometrical shapes, organic linework, and distorted images. His paintings explore themes of innovation, technology, society, and history. Barbeito holds an MFA from Yale University, a BA from Brandeis University and he studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His artwork has been exhibited in California, New York, and Connecticut, as well as internationally.
Pat Steir: Pat Steir is an American painter and printmaker born in 1940 who is known for her dripped and splashed “waterfall” paintings since the 1980s. Steir is a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and her artwork has been featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, as well as internationally including Rome and Paris. Her artwork is associated with Chinese painting techniques, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art.
Peter Halley: Peter Halley is an American artist born in 1953 who is associated with the Neo-Conceptualist movement of the 1980s. Halley’s artwork explores the physical and psychological aspects of space, including structures of cities, urban housing, and prisons. His work has been exhibited in Munich, London, New York City, Moscow, and Venice.
Matthew Ritchie: Matthew Ritchie is a British artist born in 1964 who lives and works in New York City. Ritchie’s artwork is influenced by minimalism, mythology, and particle physics and he uses computer animation to construct and deconstruct images. As a mixed media artist, Ritchie uses painting, drawing, sculpture, light boxes, and performance to create his pieces. Ritchie’s artwork has been exhibited in the Dallas Museum of Art, the Houston Contemporary Arts Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern art as well as in the Whitney Biennale.
Jeremy Blake: Jeremy Blake was an American digital artist and painter born in 1971. Blake’s work often mixes the aesthetics of paintings and photographs, creating pieces that are both abstract and representational to show psychological landscapes. His work has been exhibited in Los Angeles, Munich, and San Francisco. His death in 2007 was the subject of much media attention and speculation.
Rachel Rossin: Rachen Rossin is an American artist born in 1987 who creates mixed media and installation-based artwork. In addition to her interest in abstract painting, Rossin uses virtual reality headsets to display imaginary worlds of art that provoke thought about technology and digital images. Rossin’s artwork has been featured in New York City, Palm Beach, Los Angeles, and Miami.
Julie Mehretu: Julie Mehretu is an artist born in Ethiopia in 1970 who immigrated to America when she was young and currently lives and works in New York. Mehretu gained success for her large-scale abstract paintings inspired by topography, urban landscapes, and history. Her artwork has been exhibited internationally as well as in New York, Ohio, and Detroit.
Barbara Takenaga: Barbara Takenaga is an American artist born in 1949 whose artwork is comprised of dot-work and swirls that evoke cellular, psychedelic, and cosmic imagery. Takenaga received a BFA and MFA from the University of Colorado Boulder and currently teaches at Williams College in Massachusetts. Her work has been exhibited in cities New York, San Francisco, Denver, and Dallas, among others.
Rokni Haerizadeh: Rokni Haerizadeh is an Iranian artist born in 1978 who lives and works in Dubai. Haerizadeh utilizes both painting and digital media (or “moving paintings”) to explore the tensions and inconsistencies in Western and Middle Eastern culture, including gender roles, leadership, and warfare. His artwork has been exhibited in the Tate Museum in London and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as in France, Italy, and Germany.