Artist; Ant macari

Macari is an artist with a difference, quoted from the baltic "Macari’s direct physical response to the space has resulted in a new series of site-responsive drawings, traceable throughout the building. This presentation of Ant Macari’s work is expansive and involving, presenting new visual challenges to us in and around the gallery that reaches beyond the conventional art exhibition."

He uses as you can see from the photo all the space he has available to him in the room he is situated in to produce his art. He leaves codes and hints in his work and forms paths to illusions hidden secrets. He uses a diverse array of techniques from tonal to line shading and isometric drawings, he involves the viewers in a fantastic way when his art is displayed. I see it as marketing art in a different sense taking in and using everything he can around him. His art could be classed as grafitti if seen on streets etc but is grafitti classed as art? However becuase it is setup in exhibitions it is known as contemporary art . Viewers are often handed guides asking them if they can find the puzzles hidden within the art of lines and crazy drwaings. It reminds me of alice in wonderland sorts of themes or pans labrynth.

Artist; Yoshitomo Nara

I actually first noticed this artists work in the Baltic Flour mill As pre-mentioned in one of my earlier posts and his work immediately stuck with me and so I started looking into his work and collection and they are a vast funny, original, different and interesting collection of work.

Yoshitomo in my mind uses his talent to bring ordinary everyday people and there actions to life by simple and stimulating illustrations. He has produced thousands of pictures and he often goes to small villages and observes the community and begins to base and draw his illustrations on the people in the community depicting out things that they are doing which are unique. It shows a very simple way of how otherwise normal things that we overlook and don't notice can become intriguing and interesting. His style is very individual and he seems to always use pastel colours and light tones, he uses outlines rather than dark and light shading to depict shadows and depth, however some use of gradual gradient can be seen in the dominant black and whites. The picture below is a great example of how ordinary life can be brought alive and become fascinating through Yoshitomo's characteristic illustrations.

Artist; Ewan Uglow

When comparing Morandi to the artist Ewan Uglow whose style of tone is different it is interesting to see how Uglow depicts out the light and dark of the forms and the huge colour differences he uses to display this, more like Cezanne. Uglow is a British artist who often painted the human figure and still life, his work uses block tone to differentiate the differences between the light and dark areas. Notice below how compared to Morandi the way Uglow uses block s of colour to create the shading on the pear rather than a smooth gradient like Morandi. In my opinion it is not as effective as to me it creates a block like structure because the eye cannot gradually move round a gradient it has to see one bock of colour then skip to the next to perceive the form.






I still think the way Uglow achieves the tonal value of the green colour is very effective however I feel Morandi s way of smoothly allowing the eye to see his forms is more effective. I can see that Uglows way could be more perceived as abstract although he does keep a certain distinction of reality in his work the way it is blocked on to me just isn’t realism in still life, although I am open to other forms of realism and admire there technique as an inspiration in other ways. My favourite is the approaches of Morandi and other Italian Artists such as Michelangelo. Another example of Uglows block tonal work can be seen in this still life painting of a figure where the body seems to be made up of segments of tone, this can be a lot like line tonal art as that is a collective of lines in places to create the form where as this is a collective of certain tonal colour values grouped together to create the form.













In conclusion there are many types of tonal art on all kinds media and the way each distinctive artist uses tone to create there work gives the viewer a different experience, to me when I look at smooth deep tonal work with slight values of colour to create form such as Morandi, I see depth and a certain link to real life viewing compared to when I see work such as Uglows I see blocks of different colour that relate flat shapes but each viewer is to there own and there is no right or wrong way it is just an expression of the Artists perception.

pictures:
(http://bavaroclasswork.homestead.com/files/Uglow-Seated-Fig.jpg)
(http://bavaroclasswork.homestead.com/planarartists.html)

Artist; Georgio Morandi

No artist in my mind in the twentieth century captured as much drama in their work as Georgio Morandi did in his small paintings of still life, flowers and landscapes. Again he was an Italian artist who grew up in small town named Bologna, his work shows relation to ‘Cezanne’ and cubism.
‘One of the few Italian artists of his generation to have escaped the taint of Fascism, and to have evolved a style of pure pictorial values congenial to modernist abstraction. Through his simple and repetitive motifs and economical use of colour, value and surface’ (Ambramowicz Giorgio Morandi: The art of silence. Janet Abramowicz 2004.)
I find the way ‘Morandi’ uses the value of tones to create his work fascinating if you look closely you can see how the deep black tone gradually lightens or darkens as forms are being created and this slight on value gives the work its edge and realism, notice the picture how the swirled vase seems to go from light to dark but still maintain its form of swirls.
A shadow can also be seen but it is very gentle and does not over power the painting, Morandi somehow still manages to keep the texture of the surface but also adds a lower tonal value to create the shadow this again in my opinion is a great example of how the human eye would also observe it. The same can be seen in the examples below.















You can see where cubism and Cezanne have played and influence on Morandi in these pieces or art, however Cezanne to me tended to stray away from the subtle shading and go for a more enhanced way of depicting light and darks even by completely using a different colour such as a secondary or tertiary colour.

pictures:
(http://www.askart.com/AskART/photos/COL20070618_4699/27.jpg) (http://www.artsjournal.com/man/images/MorandiLucas.jpg)
Giorgio Morandi Ntura Morta still life. (Arts right society New York)

Artist: Italian Art ; Michelangelo and Battista Franco

I find Italian art to be the most powerful tonal art, the way the Italian artists use tone to create shapes and forms and depict out the light and dark to deceive the eye and create such a realism almost like a photo.
Such work as by Michelangelo and Battista Franco of still life using shading to create the forms of the body, to create an illusion and also a perspective to the viewer. The simplicity of the tone shows by how minimal the use of it is, the pieces are not heavily shaded and there is plenty of space on the canvas. Michelangelo and Franco are not scared to show this space and allow the eye to wander, depict and seek out the forms of the body.
This is similar to modern day advertising and modern art, people are often scared of space and feel they must fill but I personally believe when used in the correct way allowing space can be more powerful than filling it up.

Picture 1. Batisa Franco. Seated Nude Youth.
Picture 2. Michelangelo. Christ at the column
(The contribution of Philip Pouncey. The study of Italian Drawings. 1994)