Sam Wolfe Connelly

I love Connelly's paintings, he creates subtle scenes of the grotesque by creating strange situations with the human form.  Either a woman with what appears to be feather covered legs or  a drowning man, he deals with dark material.  In various works he hides the identity of his forms, drawing the viewer in, due to their inclination of curiosity.  The visual vocabulary is strange and visceral with a hint of creepiness and obscurity.  Though he doesn't use the monster image, he uses the human form in strange positions to point towards the grotesque.

Here is a link to his website and a gallery that shows his work:

http://samwolfeconnelly.com/pages/gallery.html
http://www.arcadiacontemporary.com/artists/connelly/#/1



THE WALLS WHICH STAND - graphite/charcoal



ABOVE MY FLOORBOARDS, graphite/carbon

Carrie Longley

I have known about carrie Longley for a while now.  She creates strange organisms out of clay, blending visions of human and animal anatomy.  I enjoy her surfaces, a combination of fatty, bulbous flesh and stretched skin over bone.  It is obvious that she looks at anatomy for reference.  I am trying to do that more in my work.  recently I acquired an anatomy book from the library as reference.

Here are some examples of her work and a link to her website:

www.carrielongley.com



I enjoy how she displays her work as though they are specimens found in a lab.  A possible display solution.

Hannah Hoch: A continuation...

Frances Connelly. Modern Art and the Grotesque. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University                 Press, 2003. Print.

Here is another source about Hannah Hoch.  In chapter 9, it discusses Hannah Hoch and her obsession with grotesque bodies.  The chapter compares her work with Connelly's definition of grotesque.  For instance, "the grotesque is an aesthetic strategy that cuts across or against boundaries and categories.  By combining the primitive and modern, the male and female, the natural and the man-made, grotesque images like Sweet One challenge presumed universals of classical beauty as the pertain both to art and to the body.  Photo-montage, by its definition brings together unlike things from disparate worlds and thus transgresses and destabilizes boundaries more naturally than any other medium.... The photograph is intuitively felt to be a mirror of reality, photo montage, with its surprising juxtapositions of disparate photographic images, is is inherently more unsettling than paintings or sculptures that similarly jumble categories."

In the text there are various images that combine photographs of naked women and various ceremonial masks.  This juxtaposition creates strange imagery that takes the viewer aback.

The text goes further to explain Hoch's extensive use of the female form."[The} historical and theoretical construction of the grotesque likewise tends to evoke the female, though it builds more on the bodily metaphor.  Dark and cavernous, earthly and material.As Marsha Meskimmon has recently argued, monsters are all about maternity, about a "misshapen birth, an abortion, the result of bestiality or a woman's union with a demon, the product of some trauma delivered to a pregnant woman."

I found this description of the association of the female form with the grotesque interesting.  It makes sense because if you look at various scary movies, i.e. The Exorcist, Carrie, Rosemary's Baby, evil, ugliness, or the grotesque emerge or come from the female form.

Various works commented on medical debate about sexual identity and beauty enhancement.

Anyway, I enjoy her work because it is weird and somewhat controversial.


Strange Beauty (Fremde Schonheit), 1929.  Photo-montage with watercolor.


Sweet One (Die Sui be).  Photo-montage with Watercolor

Hannah Hoch

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jan/09/hannah-hoch-art-punk-whitechapel

While doing research on the grotesque I discovered Hannah Hoch, a female photo-montage artist who created works that were political comments and celebrated the New Woman.  For instance in one work  "Heads of State... she took a recent newspaper photograph of German president Friedrich Ebert and his defence minister Gustav Noske, pictured in their bathing trunks at a Baltic resort, and set their paunchy figures atop an iron-on embroidery pattern of a woman with a parasol, surrounded by flowers and butterflies."

In the article it describes her work as a surreal gtotesque.  I agree because she destroys the ideals of what art is, cutting up pictures , giving life to severed limbs and creating alien and deformed figures.  Though she is a two dimensional artist, I enjoy the way she explored composition using collage.

Here are some examples of her work:



 Staatshäupter (Heads of State), 1918-20

Kiki Smith

I love Kiki Smith because I enjoy how she works in a variety of media i.e. printmaking, wax, bronze, and clay. Also she creates work that deals with "forbidden" topics such as feces in her piece "Tale."  In that work particularly she questions why once feces separates itself from the body, it becomes taboo.  She creates a shocking image as a woman crawls across the floor, feces smeared on her bottom as a "tail" of waste trails behind her.  She confronts the viewer with taboo subjects by creating blunt images.

I found an interview of Kiki Smith on Art21 under the title "Stories," which I feel embodies her work because she creates narratives within each piece.

Pictures of Work:

Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-kiki-smith-in-stories

OR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aRhXY0wQiE

AND

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cVn6YzOuGE

Hustvedt, Siri.  “Kiki Smith Dismembers Body And Mind Insides Out.”  Modern Painters (2006):  70-73.  Academic Search Complete. Web. 16 Aug 2014

MATTHEW BARNEY

Matthew Barney is an interesting artist, he explores topics that straddle between the ordinary and the absurd.  In his film series, Cremaster Cycle, he creates imaginative environments that represent male and female sexuality.Barney acts as director, producer, actor, and artist. throughout this theories he dresses as various characters such as a satyr, a magician, a ram, Harry Houdini, and the murderer Gary Gilmore.  I found a video of him on Art21 and YouTube where he describes the Cremaster Series. .

I enjoy Barney's work because how different the content is and how absurd and frivolous the visuals are. I may not understand the content of his work BUT I can't helped to be awed or snared by his imagery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJfI1LRK0tc

http://ec2-75-101-145-29.compute-1.amazonaws.com/art21/artists/matthew-barney

Mark Greenwalt

Though I am strictly a sculptor I admire the grotesquely beautiful drawings of Mark Greenwalt.  I love the combination of the idealistic anatomy with the deformities of extra limbs.  I love his use of color and texture to bring his figures to life.

Here is an insight to the content of his work:

"I use various drawing media to synergistically combine complex creative dualities via allegorical human figures.  These might include the tension between reason and intuition, chaos and order, or the beautiful and the grotesque.   Although these figures are often derived from anatomical sources, they seldom represent biologically living beings, but instead represent a shift away from forms occurring independently in Nature and toward forms highly dependent on Culture.

My figures often directly and indirectly reference this era’s recorded wealth of culturally mediated figuration – from master drawings to stuffed animals, from anatomical illustrations to animistic tribal effigies. In my cyclic processes of forming, deforming, and reforming, I appreciate the role of growth and decay in the creative process and reflect on the absurdities of spiritual receptivity in a mechanistic world."

-http://www.markgreenwalt.com/

Christopher Marley- "Beetle Mania"

I discovered this artist last year, when I saw my roommate's calendar filled with gorgeous compositions of insects.  He is quite interesting, he collects various species of insects from around the globe, organizing them by species and color he plays the role as an entomologist and an artist.  I just like the idea of taking these gross nightmare inducing things, for some, and creating works of art.  He doesn't only deal with insects but taxidermy animals.

I know what your thinking but he collects pelts from animals that have already died.  He receives the deceased animals from zoos and aquariums.

Though Marley isn't necessarily creating grotesque work, I enjoy his precision and scientific sensibilities.  I enjoy the diverse colors among the various species.  I like the way he displays his work.

Here is a link to his personal website and some pictures of his work:

http://www.pheromonedesign.com/

Ellen Jewett: "Feather Of Me"

Ellen Jewett is a self taught sculptor that has a background in Biological Anthropology and Fine Arts.  She makes three dimensional sculptures of, what the website describes, as 'grotesque hybrids.'  I can see the association because her work combines animal anatomy with the whimsical combining various animals together to create these fantastic creatures.  I love the texture she creates in her work and the use of negative space.  I also enjoy the quote: "...sculpting has always been about life, biological narratives, emotions, and movement."  

Here are some images a link to the website:

http://www.featherofme.com/ellen-jewett-the-grotesque-hybrids/