Blogtober Day 5

It’s late. I’ve had a busy day. I feel like I’m doing my homework on the bus. So, slight skive by borrowing the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt for my Blogtober contribution today. I am really enjoying everyone’s posts by the way, and part of the reason I like doing these blogging challenges is that it inspires me to look at other people’s work and discover a few new faces. I love blogging – I write a Substack newsletter but that’s more literary daaahling and I think blogs are less self-conscious somehow.

Anyway, this is going to be a brief round up of a couple of my favourite artists as I realise it’s a bit off message.

Julie Mehretu

I did an art foundation course in drawing a few years ago which gave me the excuse to buy myself Tate membership, where one of Mehretu’s paintings resides in the permanent galleries. Her paintings are vast, and she uses layers: architectural drawings, lines, tape, marks over marks over marks. I got quite obsessed about lines and making marks for my drawing course, and I love love her work. This video from her exhibition at the Whitney shows just how powerful she is as an artist.

Georgia O’Keeffe

Another artist from my Tate-visiting days. I particularly love her New Mexico landscapes. When I did the Birds of the Mogollon Wildway logbook it was nice to revisit this landscape as we have *nothing* like it in the UK, and it’s such an evocative wildness, and I think O’Keeffe captures the stillness and heat like nobody else.

Grant Wood

Specifically his landscapes. I love this one The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, 1931 but all his landscapes are brilliant. I don’t like his most famous work, American Gothic but it just shows that it’s worth investigating an artist’s work beyond the well-known pieces.

Julian Opie

His work reminds me of Miffy, Dick Bruna’s bunny masterpiece, fondly remembered from my childhood.

There, a few artists to whet your appetite.