Augusta Savage

-African-American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance
-She began making clay figures as a child, mostly small animals, but her father would beat her when he found her sculptures.

Beauford Delaney

-A celebrated artist who was part of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930's and 40's.
-Moved to Paris in 1953 where he developed a distinct style of abstract impressionism, and became a mentor and friend to expatriate writers James Baldwin and Henry Miller. 
-His artwork became increasingly abstract and non-representational over the years.
-Died tragically in a Paris insane asylum in 1979.
-He bears a striking resemblance to my grandfather.

Self-portrait

Jazz Quartet

Tony Matelli

Tony Matelli

• Tony Matelli’s hyper-real sculptures of meat and vegetable portraits, sprouting weeds, stacked cards, sleepwalking humans and malicious chimpanzees captures your attention with immediacy, a visual poignancy that would make it hard not to react with curiosity and amusement.
• Matelli’s uses his own struggles and pessimisms as a launching pad to his work, a romantic artist with a diaristic approach sharing stories of problems and trying to undo those problems which only risks being less interesting and even inhumane.



Double Meat Head, cast aluminum, cast bronze, urethane, paint, 2009





• Guest at VCU.

Old Enemy, New Victim, silicone, urethane foam, fiberglass, steel, hair, 2007

Paul Signac

A photo that I took at Paul Signac's home at Barfleur in Normandy, France.

• When I was in France I found this home of the painter Paul Signac. I never  knew anything about him until now. 
• French neo-impressionist painter who helped develop pointillism. 
•  He followed a course of training in architecture before deciding at the age of 18 to pursue a career as a painter after attending an exhibit of Monet's work.
• Many of Signac's paintings are of the French coast. He loved to paint the water. There is plenty of water at Barfleur! (I had the best mussels I've ever had in my life, there.)

"Sunday," 1888-1890

Leonid Tishkov

Leonid Tishkov

• Having graduated from medical school as general practitioner, he was a co-editor of a medical encyclopedia and worked as illustrator for a number of newspapers. 
• From 1980s, when he became acquainted with the Moscow conceptualist circles, Tishkov has devoted himself to art.
•  Tishkov’s constantly evolving story is told with the use of objects, drawings, paintings, artist’s books, drama plays, photographs and video works.
• Over the last ten years Tishkov has been working chiefly with installation, photograph and video.

"A Stars Visit"

Marni Kotak

Brooklyn-based performance artist Marni Kotak

• Said giving birth is the "highest form of art" 
• Delivered a baby boy — inside a New York City art gallery
• She has been re-enacting events from her life for more than 10 years, including her own birth, losing her virginity in "a sunny blue Plymouth" and her grandfather's funeral.

Teresita Fernández

Teresita Fernández

•VCU Alumni
•1992 Sculpture + Extended Media MFA
•Selected by President Obama to serve on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts; a panel which advises the government on national matters of design and aesthetics such as the design and site of national memorials and museums.
•Fernández is best known for her prominent public sculptures and unconventional use of materials, which are characterized by an interest in perception and the psychology of looking.

Fernández is the youngest artist commissioned by the Seattle Art Museum for the recently opened Olympic Sculpture Park where her permanently installed work Seattle Cloud Cover allows visitors to walk under a covered skyway while viewing the city’s skyline through optically shifting multicolored glass.