Monday, October 25, 2010

Two from Finland, Two from Japan

I have made the final selection of artists that I want to write about for my dissertation.

I kept changing my mind. At first I wanted to write about artists whose work was similar to mine.

Then I wanted to write about artists whose work was similar to Agnes Martin's.


Then I decided to go with my own emotional pull to the work.





the above image is by Noriko Narahira from Japan
from her Scenes of White series 1999
machine stitch, felt

Aino Kajaniemi from Finland
Memory 2008 tapestry

I found that there just is not enough information about some artists, and this discouraged me. I would find an image of them in a book, but nothing online. Especially artists of the generation before me - still working, but not as digitally savvy as we need to be today. This made me realize how important the Internet is. I imagine that the Internet is changing how young people learn about art. Merja Winqvist from Finland
Tree 2002 paper, shellac

I prefer books, but was introduced to many artists from my two chosen cultures, Japanese and Finnish on the web. Kyoko Kumai from Japan
Blowing in the Wind 1999
stainless steel filament

These four are my final choices, selected because their work is simple, emotional, rooted in labour, grounded in nature, based on repetition, and expresses concern for our world.

5 comments:

Dolores said...

Wonderful choices. With so many very good artists out there on the web I am surprised that you were able to narrow it down to just four.

Anonymous said...

this is wonderful! and you're right the internet has changed the variety and format of artists viewed. i'm only 25 and i remember having two large art books in our house and outside of that i saw very little because of our geography.

it often excluded emerging artists and those of non European descent.

i love your selections and love your reasoning behind them.

Caterina Giglio said...

these are great choices, wonderful work, all similar and different...

ArtPropelled said...

The emotional pull works for me. Great choices! I think of growing up without the internet and finding so little in the books available .... and then to discover the internet. Oh boy what a revelation!! Never in my wildest dreams would I have known what discoveries lay ahead. I still battle to get my mind around this miraculous invention.

Valerianna said...

I like your choices, and the list of whys. I feel that my teaching has expanded with the internet. It used to be that the artists I could show my students were either ones with published catalogs, books or postcards from shows. Now I can research many contemporary artists as so many of us now have portfolio web sites. It makes a HUGE difference to show them artists working NOW who may or may not be well known. I find the web such a great addition to teaching... and the blog world is a great inspiration to my students!