portraits – Cleveland State Art

No Title 20”x 24” C-Print 2002

Daniel Gordon is an american artist best known for producing large color photographs that fall somewhere between a collage and set-up photography. Gordon was born 1980 in Boston, Massachusetts and his art took off while as an undergraduate, with his “Flying Pictures”. These pictures were a series of low-fi simulations of human flight. An assistant photographed Gordon as he catapulted himself into the air, capturing the magical instant before gravity had its way. The resulting images blur the lines between reality and fiction, simultaneously documenting his activity and portraying an impossible event.

Skull and Seashells 59.25″ x 74″, C-Print 2014

Artichoke 7″ x 9″, C-Print 2013

Still Life with Fruit and Ficus, 2016, C-Print, 59.25 x 74

July 10, 2009 16″ x 20″, C-Print 2009

His work Involves creating three-dimensional sculptures made from cut paper and printed images taken from magazines and the internet that he then photographs. Unlike the perfection of images manipulated with Adobe Photoshop, these paper creations are deliberately imperfect and unpolished. Daniel Gordon uses photography to create images that follow along with the lines of obsession with the human body and the discomforts of having one.

Artichokes and Leeks 39.75″ x 49.75″, C-Print 2014

He is the creator of Flying Pictures, Still Lifes, Portraits, and Parts and Flowers and Shadows. He has exhibited his work in solo exhibitions and is represented by James Fuentes in New York City, his work has also been featured in magazines such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Art Review, New York Magazine and more. He is the co-director of The Downstairs Project in Brooklyn where he lives with his wife and daughter and also works

.Red Face III 23.75″ x 18.9″, C-Print 2014

Chuck Close was born in Monroe, Washington, 1940. His parents were artistic, and gave their son encouragement to pursue his creative interests. However, Close suffered from severe dyslexia, which had him struggling through all of his schoolwork except for art. To add to it, he has some sort of neuromuscular condition that kept him from playing sports. He also has a disorder called prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, which means he cannot recognize faces on a three-dimensional plane. He realized that, working with photographs, he could see and recognize people’s faces only on a two-dimensional plane.

At age eleven, his father died, and his mother was ill with breast cancer. Close himself became ill with a kidney infection which kept him bedridden for almost a year. Despite this, at fourteen, he saw an exhibit of Jackson Pollock paintings, which further drove his love for art. He went to the University of Washington School of Art and Yale University School of Art and Architecture.

Close became well known for his large scale paintings, specifically the hyper-realistic portraits. He did quite a few photo-realistic self-portraits, as well as of other people. However, he only did portraits of women he knew well or whose work he admires, such as Hilary Clinton. He uses a technique he calls “knitting,” which are basically pixels of tiny brush strokes. This is what helps him achieve the realism that has made him famous for blurring the line between photography and hyper-realism.

1988 he had a rare spinal artery collapse. It left him nearly all paralyzed. Even after physical therapy, Close became permanently bound to a wheelchair with only limited use of his limbs. Because of this, he can no longer make his photo-realistic portraits. Instead, he makes portraits that are more surreal and less precise. To do this, he has a brush taped to his wrist.

In 2000, Close was given the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton, and is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. To tag to that, he was just recently selected by President Obama to be on The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

I’ll admit, Close is one of my favorite artists. Not just because of his super realistic portraits, but also he persevered through all the different ailments and tragedies that were thrown at him through the years, and kept on going so he could do what he wanted to do: art.

Sources:

http://www.biography.com/people/chuck-close-9251491

http://www.pacegallery.com/artists/80/chuck-close

http://www.biography.com/people/chuck-close-9251491#early-life&awesm=~oC386sMAHU7Vz8

http://www.a-sense-of-place.com/2012/07/artsmart-roundtable-chuck-close-and-photorealism.html

http://worldsciencefestival.com/videos/chuck_up_close

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/chuck-close-makes-art-in-fund-raising-gambit-for-obama/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0