Jack Taziker Art

Steve Kaufman an incredibly successful Bronx, NY born artist, managing to create an amazing legacy and record of charity work for many to look up to after his untimely death in 2010. Alongside his work as an activist and numerous donations to charity, he created a series of work that collates to show a staggering 15 styles, matching the variety of styles Picasso also adopted.

From a young age, he was creating pieces of work for a number of people; being sponsored by a Jewish Temple to produce Holocaust paintings, he participated in a group graffiti show at the Whitney Museum and worked for Macy’s on 34th Street in Manhattan, all before the age of 15. After enrolling at the School for Visual Arts, he met Keith Haring, who he came to work with and Andy Warhol, who he then became assistant to at The Factory (Warhol’s NY Studio). Kaufman graduated from the School with a BFA.

After graduating was when he began to raise awareness for issues and help charities to grow and his work with promoting the awareness of AIDS. For example, in the early 80’s he was arrested amongst other AIDS demonstrators for chain-locking Ed Koch, the NYC Mayor in his office. His ongoing work with raising awareness of AIDS was helped with the citywide campaign that featured his 5x5 feet paintings of Trojan condoms.

His work for helping the city did not stop here and he went on to hire homeless civilians in his studio, where he painted their portraits and money raised from these now help to benefit the lives of the homeless. Racial Harmony Murals. are something that Kaufman was a big part of and by the early 90’s he had created 55 of the Murals with Malcolm X images. Due to Warhol’s death in 1987, Kaufman was then the artist to complete the unfinished commissions that Warhol had taken on from a number of clients.

His work shows something reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s practice, this obviously came from the personal connection he had to Warhol whilst working alongside him. I hadn’t actually heard of Kaufman before doing any research, as although I do love and appreciate many works of art, I don’t necessarily analyse and research what I am looking at. However, in doing this research it showed me that he was not just a creative soul but was a loving man that fought for the rights of a number of people from a variety of backgrounds, something that is admirable to many. The work itself commemorates that of which is the focus of the work in a respectable manner, showing them at their best. Take the Tiger Woods piece below, it shows him in his element, not in a failed state. Alongside producing this work, he also created the 6 colour silkscreen method, changing the way that artists around the world practice.

In his time as an artist, he had also received the Undergound Artist of the Year award, going on to move to Los Angeles where he studied a new style, “comic book pop art”. He also began to hire ex-gang kids from prison in the early 90’s to help work in his studio, amassing to a staggering 1,975 individuals (ex-gang kids and homeless men of LA) in 2007.

Steve Kaufman ensued a series of strokes and illnesses that put his life into perspective for him, this gave him a boost to throw himself fully into his work, driving him to lose weight to become a healthier man. On the 12th of February 2010, Kaufman suffered a fatal heart attack and wanted to live on through his words, "This is what I live for... I had a great life, so please don't cry for me. I've has the life of 100 men.".

http://www.stevekaufmanart.com/biography.html

Andy Warhol is one of the leading pop art figures of all time, using this visual movement to showcase his talents as an artist, film director and producer and lived his life as an openly gay man before the gay liberation. Initially, he pursued a career as a successful commercial illustrator and after exhibiting work in a number of galleries in the late 50’s, he began to gain recognition as an influential and controversial artist.

To me, Warhol’s work is something that I have always found a joy in looking at, as pop art is my favourite art movement I have a complete appreciation for the work that artists have done to build the platforms we can now contribute to. In particular, the work of Warhol explores relationships between artistic expression, advertising and celebrity culture, encapsulating the whole meaning behind the movement of Pop Art and it’s origin. As stated previously, he did not only work solely as a painter but explored the fields of; painting, silkscreening, photography, film and sculpture. Thus creating a variety of work that is still loved and inspires people across the world today, for instance the Campbell’s Soup Can silkscreen, famously known worldwide.

His time as an artist had a rather busy and colourful background, he created social spaces for people to enjoy nightlife and express themselves in a creative outlet. His New York studio, The Factory became a gathering place for a variety of people; distinguished intellectuals, drag artists, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons. The Factory became somewhere that slowly fizzeled out after a radical feminist shot Warhol on the premises, after claiming “he had too much control over my life” when he didn’t return a script he had in fact misplaced, this leading her to performing his attempted murder in 1968.

Warhol promoted a collection of personalities under the name of “Warhol’s Superstars”, including The Velvet Underground, an experimental rock band he managed and produced in the late 60’s. The artist also was credited with inspiring the phrase “15 minutes of fame” and had founded Interview magazine, all contributing to the amazing legacy he left behind him after his death in 1987.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/andy-warhol-2121

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#Attempted_murder_(1968)

Dua Lipa recently released her album Future Nostalgia and it has an amazing sound, obviously contributing to our constantly expanding popular culture. A number of tracks have a disco feel, drawing inspiration from popular culture that has come before us, creating an appreciation for the styles of music, art and fashion from our social history.

To me, one track in particular has taken iconic references from the 70’s and 80’s, Physical has this disco sound that has started to become more and more frequent in music featuring in the charts. Alongside this sound, the visuals and media presence to this single have aclassic 80’s workout, Jane Fonda-esque quality that has both a commemorative yet comical element.

To add this to my practice, I wanted to create something that played on the ideas of the workout video and callbacks to the decades referenced in the artists recent release. Below you can see my initial designs for the work I wanted to achieve, starting with my really rough sketch, you can see how I wanted the design to progress and the intentions that I had. The second image shows a more realised version of what was previously just built on a rough sketch and my imagination, I took into consideration the styles of Instagram artists and how fashion models are drawn with overly long legs as this is a style that I really like.

I carried on creating more sketches of the work, as I had a really strong concept in mind of what I wanted it to look like as a finished product and I wanted to experiment with a number of ideas before committing to one. The image on the right below was my final design, I wanted to take qualities of the decades that had clearly inspired the original work and use a lava lamp quality to create a background for the figure to sit above.

After integrating this idea of a lava lamp like pattern, I felt much happier with my design and began working on the larger scale piece. To complete, I used a mixture of neon inks and acrylic paints, as seen in the images below it is visible that there are elements that stray from the design I wanted to originally paint in. I do however really like that the focus of the piece is clearly the body and it’s links to the workout video aesthetic, I felt that including a number of extra features and limbs took away from the idea that I had originally had.

Our popular culture has currently been expanded, with much younger generations now being able to explore the decades of classic Disney that have come before them in the form of film. This is due to the introduction of Disney+, a streaming service that holds a number of movies from my childhood that both me and my sister treasured. Alongside these classic movies, Marvel films are also a feature on this platform, my favourite movies from my pre-teen and teenage years. To give some form of tribute to this and a nod to the new popular culture wave, I decided to create a large scale piece of work based on this subject.

When thinking up the composition of this piece I wanted to use Snow White as a comic book cover for a “Scream Queens” titled work, as she is what I would call the original scream queen. However, my idea soon changed when I decided that I wanted to show the contrast between the two art styles of Disney and Marvel, therefore taking a frame from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and using a comic book image of The Incredible Hulk, I created an imaginary scenario to then paint.

I began painting this piece and of course I had to get Snow White’s skin shade perfect, as that it’s truly what makes her whole appearance and unique look when standing against other princesses. However, upon closer inspection when viewing the images and frames of the movie, she actually has a pink undertone to her skin and as you can see from the swatches I tested above, the first pink shade was way too dark and I had to lighten that significantly.

Snow White has the classic Disney drawing style and to create the harsh contrast against this, bringing The Hulk into the back of the piece felt right. I loved to create superheroes and became highly inspired by the graphic way characters like this were drawn at a young age and used to practice this style frequently. When adding The Hulk into this, I had to complete a series of under painting until a level of definition was achieved so that I could then build the darker features of the character onto this base.

What I love about pop art is it’s ability to use both advertisment branding and comedy to poke fun at our culture and society. Therefore, I wanted to create a print like piece that poked fun in a sarcastic way at the trillion dollar company Apple.

It may sound hypocritical as I am a user of their products, but I felt this was the best company to poke fun at, as people have become so attached to the technology they provide. I began with a simple sketch to give myself an idea of what I wanted to create and then began to translate this onto a multi media canvas, as I did not yet know what I wanted to use to complete the piece. When beginning the work I decided that I wanted to mimic the simplistic designs of Apple’s aesthetic, using clean lines and a basic white background to emphasis the product displayed. To add that Pop Art style, I used neon inks to fill the apples main body and leaf, along with using other inks to paint in the text.

As you can see in my initial design above, there are ways in which I have simplified the design and completely removed the quote-like review that I suggested to be from Isaac Newton “Just amazing”, I also thought about using “Groundbreaking” to hammer forward the idea of using sarcastic humour in the work. To add extra dimension and texture to the finish, I chose to use some circular white stickers that had a similar look to the dot work seen in Roy Lichtenstein’s work, adding that pop art flare that this work was missing. Adding these stickers also allowed me to add the highlights on the cartoon apple, incorporating the overall theme of my practice for this semester too.

Dalí is a Spanish, surrealist icon, probably best known for his melting clocks in his piece The Resistance of Memory 1931. His talents for art were noticed at a young age and was he propelled into the artworld by the support he received from his family. At a young age they had even built him his own home studio and sent him straight into an art school when they could. The encouragement he got didn’t stop there as he later applied to an academy in Madrid to further his education. Whilst at the academy he was suspended in 1923 due to the fact that he had criticised the teachers, however it wasn’t until 1926 that he was permenantly expelled shortly before his exams, as he declared that no member of the faculty was competent enough to examine him.

Dalí’s work shows what could be perceived as a series of dramatised and exaggerated inner thoughts, to me they are so far fetched that that could only come from a incredibly fruitful imagination or as a symbol of fears and anxieties. I had this idea from looking at the image of the clock below, to me it could represent the fear and anxiety that time is merely a concept and that sometimes it feels like days all melt into a strange mass. Creating a fear that time passes by and there is no real way to measure our lives. Another suggestion that his work could’ve been inspired by a dream state is how the colours in the pieces are completely non-sensical and don’t correlate in anyway to natural forms, for example using turquoise’s to present the human body.

When interacting with Picasso, Magritte and Miró in his visits to Paris, they introduced him to surrealism, he didn’t only use this in his painting practice but instead explored surrealism in other artistic directions and outlets, like film in which he created Un Chien Andalou. Regardless of this he used of the idea and meaning of surrealism in his own way, “Dalí’s painting’s became associated with three general themes: 1) man’s universe and sensations, 2) sexual symbolism and 3) ideographic imagery.”

Unfortunately, painting was taken from his life in his later years when he could no longer hold a paintbrush due to a motor disease, depriving a creative soul of such talent, the outlet he connected with throughout his life and career.

https://www.biography.com/artist/salvador-dali

For this piece of work, I wanted to take a more simplistic approach, taking it right down to geometric shapes. Going into creating this piece, I had no idea of what I wanted to do, I feel that in doing this I have created something that solely relies on its expressive intentions.

I made this right at the beginning of our COVID-19 lockdown. I try to keep away from letting negative feelings influence the work that I create, but this has had a large impact on us all and it couldn’t be ignored. However, I began to create this work and added faces to the circles, I wanted to show how people who are on the front lines may feel, including my own feelings as I am a key worker in the delivery service of a supermarket.

I took inspiration from what I was seeing around me at work, this helped me create the title “dead happy”. Other than a slang term for complete elation, I wanted the faces to represent how although we are all at work, some tired and some exhausted, there is an ongoing happiness we feel to still be helping out in the times we face.

An area of popular culture that I really wanted to explore since Pop Art is not only confined to painting and drawing etc., was in fact the release of new music and how that is also a large part of what affects our society. Therefore, I wanted to create a piece inspired by one of my favourite albums of the past year, Harry Styles’s Fine Line.

Below you can see my initial design for this piece, I wanted to do something that had a link to the album, but I didn’t want to be obvious and instead still fit the semester topic of Art and Popular Culture. In some of my work, legs have been a running theme, for example in the etching workshop I created prints of a giant hairy leg in a pump. Therefore, as legs seem to be a main focal point of the album art too, I’d take that and translate it in my own way.

In a way, I always saw contrasting and complementary colours as a feature of Pop Art, this idea has been with me since I was young and enjoyed the Pop Art style in my primary school years. To complete this I therefore chose to use a series of blue shades that would contrast against the oranges and yellows that I went on to use in the piece. Initially I had decided that I wanted the clouds to be a simple white, however after finishing the majority of the work, I had realised that a level of detail was lacking. I still wanted to keep a simplistic finish to this piece, but I needed to find a texture that would work against the flat colour of the painting. To fit the idea of popular culture, I came to the idea of using newspaper cutouts that featured current stories of our pop culture and everyday life to fill the cloud structures. To tie in this idea throughout the entire piece, I chose to use this same texture on the boots of the work as it would otherwise feel disjointed and an afterthought if it didn’t carry on thoughtout.

As all of my pieces start, I create a perfect outcome in my head, in all fairness this has a negative effect when something doesn’t go the way I had planned it to. I did exactly this when thinking up the idea of this string vest. I wanted it to be front and back completely covered and made up of weaved or braided string. Talking with tutors in the studio, I was encouraged to discard the idea of a final outcome and see where I take the work using my initiative.

This was the first time I had started a project using string, intending a wearable outcome. I started out by just braiding lots of long lengths of string that I could use to spiral and tie together in a somewhat macrame style process. Using my own measurements and knowledge of the human anatomy, I started to create the shell of what would end up as a wearable art piece. The first main feature I started on was the pectoral muscles, spiralling long braids around a template I had made that look similar to a starfish (pictured below: image 2), securing it in place using a small knot with every circuit.

I repeated this process until I was happy with what I had made, hoping that it had the desired size for the outcome. I then repeated this to create a second, I used up a lot of the braided string very quickly and found that the process of making this piece would take much longer than I had thought.

I then began working on the body’s mid section, focusing on creating the abdominal muscles. I used a series of small intricate braids and a ladder like way of joining them to build 6 singular rectangles that would make up the focus for the centre of the vest. To make up for the inability for it to be wearable at this point, I began creating a joining network of lengths of string which would end up being weaved together to form the back and sides, this started to challenge me a lot and began to lack definition between the main focal point (this being the muscular torso) and the rest of the homemade garment.

Knowing this, I began to think about what would give the piece what it had been missing in how it was not yet wearable or defined as a bodily form. Therefore my idea was to use an old jumper of mine to create panels I would stitch to the string template, solving the issues I had been presented with. To secure the braided representations of the body’s muscular form, I once again used a network of string to fix the pieces hanging in place where the muscles would naturally lie.

Overall the outcome of the piece is something I am on the fence about, I love how the main focal points have been executed and are translatable as a human torso. On the other hand, I would’ve loved to create the whole piece from string and keep it as a more chic and monochromatic style, however I think that I have managed to practice a number of skills in different areas by making changes to this idea along the way.

For all the pieces below, I wanted to complete them with elements of collage to link back to the workshops and pieces we have been shown that a collage based.

Creating these rather simple designs I wanted to think of what I believe pop art to be. To me I don’t think it always has to be about popular culture but instead can take on the style of this movement, for example with the cereal bowl sketch I wanted to take the graphic simplicity of the work and feature collage in adding branding to the elements, taking images of almonds and placing it in the milk pour, etc.

Not only that but in the scissors sketch you can see below, I wanted to use the idea of graphic phrasing to link back with how Roy Lichtenstein used onomatopoeic wording in his pieces to create his unique style of work. Still in keeping with a similar style to Keith Haring by mimicking the way he used bold black lines against flat colour to give a shocking factor to his work as an artist.

An area of our current pop culture that I wanted to explore is the physical aesthetic of being in shape etc. With TV programmes like ‘Love Island’ and the constant flow of Instagram posts that promote the idea and look of a desired, muscular and toned body, it creates a pressure on us all that there is a standard we should keep our physical appearances to.

I was looking to branch out in the ways that painting can be translated, with the way that the body is a physical thing, that you wear your own skin. I chose to create a painted body on a blazer, I chose the blazer as it has connections to something very masculine and a special item of clothing that likes to be showboated.

Using the idea of a painted visual it can link to how editing of images can be done to show changes to a surface, suggesting that taking something for surface value can be deceiving and not what it might be underneath. To create this piece I used Pebeo fabric paints, I kept the tones very simple, using limited shades of paint to keep a contrasting effect between the actual fabric and the painted areas. I originally mapped out what I would paint using a pencil And began to layer the paints starting with the shade ‘portrait pink’.

To gain areas of deeper and darker tones to build the shape and look of a muscular torso, I added a darker brown in the shade ‘chocolate’. I applied this in the areas beneath the pectoral muscles and the armpit areas to show significant contrast, I think went over this shade with a layer of ‘portrait pink’ to soften it. After this had dried I saw that it didn’t show enough depth and instead went back in with the brown shade.

To create more definition in the muscular features, I took a very small amount of the dark brown paint and brushed most of the paint off on another piece of paper, I had done this so that the paint came off very lightly in a scratchy, mark-making type of way. This showed a softened transition when up close, but had the very cut, harsh aesthetic from afar. By mixing the paints I had previously used, I created a mid-tone that fit well and added some extra details to my work, seen in the nipples of the blazer.

In our second pop workshop with Laura, she tasked us with writing. Laura expresses to us that she views writing as a form of drawing and wanted us to explore this, we once again took a piece of work and analysed the image completely in full detail, listing the colours and subjects that it is made up of.

I took the image below by Tai Shani and created the list next to it, starting with colours and what those colours were doing by using verbs. For example, I saw that the portrait pale pink was waving and that the powder blue was cascading. This gives the colour life, building the image like a story, creating a moving visual in your head.

For our next activity we had 5 minutes to describe what we thought was happening outside of the confines of the image’s border. I took a very literal sense of this and imagined the warehouse set up, the set task lighting and the cameras. What Laura was looking for us to do was create a new space, a story of what could be happening around what we were looking at. After sharing what we had devised, we moved onto the next task which was to create a living creature that lived in the scene and the world we created.

Taking all of what we had done in this session, we ended by taking an hour to write a piece, like a short story or a poem, etc. I began to rethink about the task of imagining what happened outside of the restraints of the image and took my knowledge of biology and created aspace inside of the human body. With my snake like character and the scene of the human body, I saw the small platform of people in the original image as a chemical process. I chose to use the snake as a creature that represented a drug addiction, invited in by the user, causing disruption amongst the body’s natural living state.

As a continuation to my previous post about the many copies I took of some simple designs I created, I wanted to play with the shape of a human body and it’s direct connection to food. My initial idea towards this was when Montana Brown on a past series of Love Island compared her own breasts to fried eggs when looking at another bustier woman, which was both comical yet disheartening to her someone talk down about the self. So I chose to use this whole scenario to truly take the comical aspect from that moment in popular culture and let it inspire me to modify an original simple design, whilst this idea was still in my head I also chose to create another couple pieces like this. An egg on toast piece and a simple fried egg pattern.

I also took some of these figures and became inspired from other sources, taking the idea of a skeleton and linking this to the food motif throughout. I therefore created a somewhat glamorous fishbone piece. Other than just using food as a leading element in these pieces, I then played up on the idea of a glamorous, fuller shaped woman and the beauty of Jessica Rabbit and her curves, as well as a street art influence using a twisted smiley face upon the body of one of my works.

When considering what else I could do to achieve a fuller field of work for this practice and semester, using a normal household printer and it’s copier function, I decided to create some designs and use magazine cutouts that I could potentially work into, or present as is. Suggesting to present them as is, came from laying out the “unhealthy” woman copies in image 1, it created a similar effect as some of Andy Warhol’s work, such as his repeated Marilyn pieces.

Mallory Dawn is an Ohio born professional fine artist that works out of Las Vegas, she creates a series of works using her skills in a variety of mediums, some of which are; ink, acrylic, pencil and spray paint to name a few.

Many of her works use flowers as a motif, creating “mystifyingly surreal, rich-coloured paintings of the female form” her work described as rich in colour, shows techniques of layering a plethora of colours to build dimension. The work that shows this style of swatch-like application sets a constrasting background to the female facial features that are lay atop.

Dawn also sports some artistic accolades, alongside having her work shown in a number of settings, for instance; Art Basel Miami -2019, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas Art Collection - New Addition, Plaza Hotel Front Entrance -May 2017 and World Trade Centre NYC -May 2019.

I became interested in this artist when discovering her work for myself on her Instagram under the handle @icecreamandcupcake, I think her work is enticing and enchanting, presenting the idea of classic female beauty by taking features that show emotion and using them in a sense of intrigue by alienating them from the rest of the human body. Her style of work shows expressive colour and to me holds the joy of painting, whilst incorporating the skills she has developed over her years as a fine artist.

https://www.icecreamandcupcakes.com/about

Portraiture is something that I am really happy and somewhat comfortable with doing, to focus on the idea of popular culture and figures in current popular culture, I chose to create a portrait piece of Billie Eilish.

To create the piece. I wanted to practice using gouache paints as I don’t have much experience with the medium and felt that exploring this and growing my skill set is something that can constantly be improved upon. I therefore took to layering the quite light skin tone shades of paint to create the lightest areas of the skin first. After I had created an overall base layer, I began to add the darker contours to the face and the pink/orange and brown tones that lie in the skin around the lips and eyes. Using these paints was something I didn’t think I would enjoy, but I started to like the washed outcome of the material’s finish.

The focus then became the facial features, taking to the eyes first and moving down the portrait. In the image below you can see that I used a number of colours to achieve the correct finish on the iris of the eye, with this being such a small area, I was worried that it would become too saturated in one colour and I would have to begin layering colours that could endanger the area from looking delicately painted. The lips however, I had a much more relaxed approach to, applying layers of different pink shades to create base. Slowly adding areas and patches of darker colours to build dimension in this feature. Atop the lips you can see small white patches of gouache, I did this as before they were added, the lips looked rather flat and dead. The white therefore adds a highlighted look to them and a life that contrasts against the darker opening of the lips.

The hair was something I had worried about the whole time of creating the piece, constantly thinking that the gouache didn’t have the effect I wanted when creating a strong dark colour. However, the translucent effect of gouache worked in my favour for this, the layering of this material allowed me to create dimension and texture in the hair. Although not a completely realistic hair texture, there is still areas of a hair-like finish. I then went in with a black ink to add some areas of opacity, creating a true black look. Using a neon green ink, I added the green hair to the piece, this did look a slight bit fake so I went in with a light brown shade to add some further details.

For this piece I wanted to create an over emphasised figure of a woman, inspired by the iconic Jessica Rabbit. I threw together a very simple sketch of my initial idea and carried in from there, using references from social media and celebrity icons along the way to influence the overall outcome. For example I chose to take features of Angelina Jolie and Kim Kardashian to form the body and face in a graphic cartoon like style.

I then had the idea to fill the blank space with graphic lettering to represent a number of influential women in pop culture over the years. Therefore I set out to create a list of names to collage together using letter from newspaper headlines, I think that adding this to the piece gives an extra texture, avoiding a flat looking finish.

In keeping with the sometimes nonsensical way that pop art is presented, I felt that using a colourful background allowed the main feature of the work to stand out. I then wanted to give detail and a fun design to the background, using citrus fruits in a pattern like way to fill the otherwise blank areas.

I have really enjoyed creating this piece, it has a randomness that I never embrace. I usually like to expand my practice on realistic portraiture and this was a way in which I could explore areas and techniques I wasn’t so familiar with, I looked at how comic books and graphic novels exaggerate the proportions of the body when it comes to characters that reside in these pages. Therefore using that and simple pop art stylings to create a stupidly out of proportion human figure.