Inspirational Artists - those who gave me a spark of thought.

From the informational book “Ways of Looking,” I’ve discovered a select couple of artists that not only hooked my attention but held it down long enough to maje me really think. From comparing my methods and thought processes to theirs, to developing ideas on what to incorporate into my own work, these two people really do stand out to me apart from the others and I’ll explain my reasoning in brief summaries.

Michael Landy, Saints Alive exhibition, 2013, Natural Gallery, London.

What struck me first was the frazzling mix of mechanical and biological elements. Personally, I love this type of stuff; I’ve always held a fascination for machinery and robotics, especially those conjoined with flesh and body in sci-fi media and video games. Not only is such a sculpture likely very time-consuming, it requires a certain way of thinking to be able to put each piece together in a way that communicates its purpose. Michael states that this work is supposed to convey the actual flesh of an artwork while battling the conceptual image or idea of it, clashing what is visceral and what is trapped in imagination.

Cory Arcangel, Drei klavierstücke, OP. 11, 2009.

Cats are amazing - almost any video featuring these fuzzy creatures are bound to get widespread attention from across the internet. What makes this specific creation special in my eyes however, is the sheer lightheartedness. Despite being an artist myself, I sometimes find myself fatigued by the deep reaches of meaning pulled from an art piece meant to communicate something personal and important, even though it has every right to be that way. While I can appreciate work of the sort, I feel like such a fun, playful mesh of cat-pianist videos speaks for itself in what it’s trying to show. Arcangel loves his cats, and wanted to share that with us in an almost whimsical composition of video media without any kind of psychological science moving it forwards.