KH Artist Research Journal

Hunter's cabin The People and Things of Onomatopoeia Charles Avery's most intriguing project is his ongoing project, "The Islanders" is a project he has been working on since 2004. He pretty much uses every artistic medium imaginable to create the people, places, and things of the imaginary islanders. Charles Avery was born in the UK in 1974, specifically Scotland. Currently, he works in London. From what I've seen, a lot of his figurative work is done in pencil. There isn't a lot I can find about him as a person, just lots of articles about his Islander project. I love that he has lost himself in the world of make believe. I guess if I'm going to take something from his practice it would be to not take myself so seriously, to loosen up, and allow my imagination to do some of the work. I get so caught up in researching and facts, in realistically portraying something, or in being accurate in shape, size, color, etc... A project like this can pretty

 Tim Okamura, “The Fight Club”, 2012 , oil, mixed media on canvas, 112 x 130 inches I can't remember exactly how I found Tim Okamura. But I looked him up and started following him on Instagram because I was so obsessed with his paintings. He paints in oils, layers and layers of oils. If you see his pictures from the side, they have so much texture and depth. I love that he portraits strong women. The beauty of who they are is palpable. On one of his posts he showed how he works. He starts by making a sketch of his model with vine charcoal on his canvas. Then, he works from undertones forward, correcting and overpainting again and again. Occasionally, you'll get a glimpse of his paint palette - it's a gigantic mound of oil paints, I love it. The backgrounds in his paintings are often collaged and spray painted, very urban and super alive. He was born, grew up, and went to school in Canada. He moved to the states to get his M.F.A. at the School of Visual Arts in New York

Marcel Dzama is another example of an artist whose work I was already familiar with, without knowing it (I love They Might Be Giants and Beck). I love how they look like vintage drawings from books like Dick and Jane. Primers that my parents read when they were little. They vintage quality is so lovely and appealing, yet interestingly his work is sort of grim and shocking. He was born and raised in Canada, but like so many artist, he moved to New York to live and work as an artist. He works in many different mediums; film, collage, watercolor, pen and ink, and sculpture. I've created a piece that reminds me a lot of the way he works. It's a retro looking picture of perfection, a woman serving her friends a luncheon, but if you really look at it, there are so many things wrong or off about the picture that make you want to understand what is going on in the scene and also wha tis going on in the artist's brain. That is how I feel about his work- I want to know wher

Visnja Mihatov Baric is a freelance illustrator  from Zagreb, Croatia. I follow her work on Instagram, her profile name is teetonka_illustrations. I think of her more as a fine artist. She occasionally does full figure drawings, but her main gig is portraits. Her portraits start as pencil drawings. She scans them and then uses digital media to manipulate them. Often she works in black and white and then add minimal color to her portraits using digital means. For the past year a lot of her work has included the head being split or opened in some way. I find her work subtle and beautiful.

Andrea Bowers is well-known as a feminist and social activist. Her art tackles hard and uncomfortable subjects: political, historical, and personal. She was born in 1965 in Ohio into a rather conservative home that was Republican but didn't really participate in politics. Through her liberal art education and her view of issues effecting women, minorities, and the marginalized, she has taken on her very powerful stance on these issues. Bowers makes contemporary issues personal through her work. She takes these large and politically heated issues and narrows them down to the individuals who are actually effected. This makes it personal and real and allows a different point of view on the issue that one might not normally think about if they themselves aren't affected by it.She has followed a path that other social activist artist tend to follow- she was an observer, became a passive commentator through her work, and is now a devoted activist. She is very thoughtful in the wa

Elizabeth Peyton was born in 1965 in Connecticut. She began drawing at an early age. She studied art in the 80's and then rose in fame in the mid-90's. She is a portrait artist. She dabbles in many mediums and like to experiment with processes and papers. Often, her small-scale portraits are in oil and have glazes and washes applied to them. She has worked in most types of prints. She currently lives and works in New York City. She likes to paint friends, lovers, and celebrities. Her popularity has grown steadily in the last 20 years and her paintings can sell well above .5 million dollars at auction. Her portraits aren't photorealistic likenesses, but because of the features and mannerisms that she chooses to emphasize, they are extremely successful in being a likeness of someone.