I wanted to choose a different title for this post but couldn't find a proper term to include all of the aspects in this strange bunch of fantastic artists I want to talk about.
If it was top 5 artists it could be a total different list (including musicians, producers, directors,..), and now that I choose the word painter, what does a cartoonist have to do with my list?
I wanted to list the most influential living artists to me, who create "scenes" by drawing, painting, collage, or any other materials on canvas or paper or just in a frame, but not performance, sheer concepts, sculpture, photography or all those other mediums.
So I had to choose that odd title to define what I really want to express.
So these are my top 5 magicians:
GEORGE CONDO
I always enjoyed drawing or painting or just watching the artworks, but the first artist and set of artworks which ignited the idea that I want to BE an artists was the great George Condo and his amazing set of pieces for Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Years later, he defined his works with the term "artificial realism" which was like a long-lost word for me to capture the near-exact thing I could say about my works.
Love the dark tone of his works.
2. NICOLE EISENMAN
Wow, She has the exact right balance in her scenes.
Everytime I see a new Eisenman I am in awe, how can she gather colors and figures like that?
Gatherings were always a key subject in my works and no one like the great Nicole Eisenman did the gatherings this satisfying.
3. R. CRUMB
"Humor" was the utmost superpower to me when I was a kid. My favorite childhood hero was Jim Carrey, unlike all my friends who idolized Bruce Lee or Stallone or Arnold or other "powerful" characters.
And dark humor is the ultimate superpower to me right now and I wish I could be s stand-up comedian in another lifetime, maybe.
And the one and only R. Crumb is my favorite master of lines, drawing and humor and laughing at the agony's face and playing carelessly with so-called red lines, everything in this world could be ridiculed and R. CRUMB KNOWS THAT.
Heads Up: a birthday gift to own my soul?
His "Bible of Filth", LOL.
4. KERRY JAMES MARSHAL
The man who created this self-portrait .
Watching his masterful artworks and definitely the lifetime struggle he had with skin tones in his works in one hand,
And this self- portrait and its great title:
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A SHADOW OF HIS FORMER SELF
In the other hand.
Creator of my all time favorite self-portrait and my favorite palettes in contemporary art scene.
5. DAVID LYNCH
When I was in my 20s he was always in my top 5 directors, but right now not his movies (which I still adore but not my personal top 5) but his strange strange artworks move my soul.
When I watched the documentary "David Lynch: The Art Life" I could not believe my eyes, how the hell he sees those scenes?
How pure are his ideas,
How unique,
Easily can be named among the masters of his time not including his cinema career.
He IS A STRANGE SOUL.
Sheer "Ideas" are his simple superpower.
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