Ryohei Hase

Ryohei Hase is a Japanese digital illustrator. His way of describing his works is, "My theme of paintings is to express the darkness of mind which is sad and gloomy but at the same time, it's beautiful and strong." I think this is worded pretty well and seems accurate from the way his pieces look. I think the way he describes this is quite beautiful, because I also find it to be very true.

He adds enormous amounts of detail to his works. When I first saw this painting, I didn't see all the little things at first. But the closer you look, the more details you start finding and it's really fascinating how as you discover these little things, it creates a different feeling in the piece.

Detail:

I really love how he uses color in his pieces. Especially like the one above. It's a very dark and sad looking image, but the colors make it very beautiful and delicate-looking. It changes that feeling from not just dark, but also inspiring. Though this piece would still look very good without all the colors, it gives a different tone to the viewer when there is this strange combination and abundance of colors. I also really enjoy the moment in this piece- the skeleton and the person seem to be moving different directions, and you are just viewing their short involvement with each other in possibly this small, split-second moment. 

http://ryoheihase.com/

Ivan Alifan

Ivan Alifan is a Russian painter who creates these very beautiful works of subjects covered in white paint. It's a very strange idea, but the way it turns out is not exactly what you would expect. He transforms this into something delicate, or something that is a bit frightening. It almost looks like the subject's skin is melting. I love that he choose white for his paintings because it's very neutral, but at the same time can mean something completely different than black. By using, white it looks almost pure or clean, even though the person may look distressed.

Though he does use white a lot, the use of lighting also changes the feeling of the painting. By using warmer colors, like in the one above on the left, it almost feels inviting and peaceful. On the other hand, the one on the right has a mixture of warm and cool colors which gives this strange feel of welcoming, but also fear or anxiety. 

http://www.ivanalifan.com/

Tommy Richardsen

Tommy Richardsen is a Norwegian photographer who focuses mostly on shooting the northern lights in Norway. I've always loved this strange phenomenon and it's really beautiful the way he captures the lights, along with the landscape beneath it. I've always wanted to see the aurora borealis, and his photos just get me more excited over them and I hope that one day I will be able to experience this event. 

The way he frames many of his photos is perfect. As much as I love the stars and the sky, it sometimes almost seems like nothing if it's the only subject in the photo. It also creates this intensity of how large the sky is and how small we are down on earth. It's insane how he is able to capture these photos, and with such realistic and vivid colors. I'm sure it's possible that Photoshop has been used, but even then, it still looks real.

In some of his photos, it almost looks like a view of the sky from another planet. It looks real, but just incredibly beautiful that it's hard to believe it happens here on earth. 

    He also shoots not just the northern lights, but also amazing shots of the night sky and the milky way.

I've only seen the milky way once, and I was really fascinated by how many stars you could see with just the naked eye. It was really amazing since here in Boise there's too much light pollution to be able to see many stars. You have to travel pretty far out to actually be able to see the milky way, which I never had the chance to do until last summer when I traveled out to West Virginia. It's just so awesome how many stars and planets that are out there that you can see just from this little planet in a sea of millions of other solar systems and galaxies.

http://www.trichardsen.com/

Beatriz Martin Vidal

Beatriz Martin Vidal is a Spanish illustrator who creates very intriguing and beautiful artworks.



She does series of works that seem to transform through each piece. In the one above, she creates this stunning movement through her pieces and creates this strange, almost confusing feeling of emptiness by the last piece.



I noticed that a lot of her works involve children or youthful looking subjects. I find this very interesting because children can symbolize many things such as innocence, cleanliness, openness or even creativity. I feel like in her pieces she uses these young looking subjects in a way to show that innocence, and even obliviousness. 



There seem to be some sort of theme going on in some of her works because a lot of them tend to not only involve children, but also some sort of form of nature, like vines or plants. They look very delicate and small, yet they seem to be taking over the subject or showing some sort of power or dominance. 



The way she uses contrast is really beautiful. She uses mostly neutrals or blacks/whites in her illustrations, but then uses a splash of color somewhere to create this contrast. I feel like if the colors were not like this, the pieces would not be quite as powerful or good looking. The concept would be almost hidden by the lack of color or too much of it, I think. 




http://www.beavidal.com/

Paolo Troilo

Paolo Troilo is an Italian artist who specializes in paining and drawing. He is self-taught, and commonly works with his fingers instead of brushes. 

I really love black and white, especially when the artist has the ability to use color, but chooses not to. These contrasting colors can be very powerful and beautiful to look at. I feel that black and white has just as much potential as any sort of piece that uses a wide array of colors. I believe that it truly does take skill and creativity to make these two colors work and execute them in artistic manner.

Many of his paintings are of men who appear to be in some sort of pain going through trauma of some sort. These drawn out lines, or paint splatters add to this effect and make it look even more painful. In this piece above, the splatters almost look like needles piercing through his arms.

There's no shortage of emotion in his works. He really does create these strong, dramatic paintings that seem to depict rage, pain, fear, power... and countless others. 

I feel like he chooses to use men as subjects in his paintings for a reason. Possibly because they might be self-portraits. I also think that for some reason its easier to connect or understand the emotion of male body than a female. At least for me. 

I think his medium empowers his work. I don't think some of these pieces would be quite as impactful if they were an illustration, or even a photograph that was altered. The blending and very dark tones of the muscles are very beautiful and I feel like it would not look the same otherwise. 

Troilo is incredibly talented and I find his work to be inspiring. I personally love drawing and sculpting men in these contorted and uncomortable emotions and positions and these paintings are very good at creating a dramatic and tense moment. 

http://www.troilo54.com/

Well Written Artist Statement

Shintaro Ohata

Shintaro Ohata is an artist who depicts little things in everyday life like scenes of a movie and captures all sorts of light in his work with a unique touch: convenience stores at night, city roads on rainy day and fast-food shops at dawn etc. His paintings show us ordinary sceneries as dramas. He is also known for his characteristic style; placing sculptures in front of paintings, and shows them as one work, a combination of 2-D and 3-D world. He says that it all started from when he wondered “I could bring the atmosphere or dynamism of my paintings with a more different way if I place sculptures in front of paintings”. Many viewers tend to assume that there is a light source set into his work itself because of the strong expression of lights in his sculpture. His further steps have been noticed as he has been featured by lots of media from overseas, including a cultural magazine from the USA that featured him on their front cover and a long interview.

I did an entry on this artist, and when we were given this assignment I thought of his statement on his website.

His statement says that he "depicts little things in everyday life...and captures all sorts of light in his work..." That stood out the most to me, because I see it in all of his works. He shows these scenes that you would normally just see and look away without seeing the potential or already existing beauty. 

In his statement he also says that he creates these little scenes and makes them dramatic. I think he does this by using lighting. The lighting is what gives his sculptures and paintings this dramatic and beautiful feel. 

I think his artist statement is successful because he very simply describes what he is trying to portray and show through his work. I also feel that he doesn't just say these things, he actually wants to put emotion into his work and it isn't just about making it look pretty. He does create these very dramatic and emotional paintings and sculptures that fit with what he has to say about them. Overall, he didn't go too in-depth about what he wants his pieces to be, he just describes his inspiration and how he wants to highlight these little moments.

Skeleton/Skin Artist Statement

The Price We Pay

This piece was a challenge for me. The materials used were extremely unusual for me, so it was pretty much an experiment. This piece originally was supposed to be more oval/egg-shaped, but it is harder to support than a wider shape. The frame is really fragile, and hard to keep its shape, so it kind of morphed into a more horizontal shape, unlike the original idea. A lot of this piece was trial and error and finding different ways to put this piece together. It is really frustrating to work with fragile materials like this, so adjustments were made and the material for the skin was changed. This piece was incredibly time consuming, since things didn't go exactly as planned. The materials work together well, since they are all pretty fragile. Even though the materials are pretty delicate, this piece looks somewhat sturdy. Thread was chosen as a material to show breakage, and repair. Black watercolors were used on the tissue paper so it could look darker, creepier, and create contrast. After applying the tissue paper and thread, the frame warped and became asymmetrical. Although it wasn’t supposed to happen, it sort of fits into the creepiness by not being perfectly symmetrical. It also contrasts the straightness of the lines in the threads. The thinness of the tissue also lets parts of the wire frame show through which creates these sharp edges and makes the form look even more distorted.