For the assignment, we were asked to "choose to research an example of contemporary art practice. Your choice of subject should allow you to contextualise you own current practice. This can be done by choosing an artist who is working with your themes, processes, materials and within an aesthetic context that relates to your current practice and concerns."
Obviously, this is quite a difficult task to do, because, as an artist, you are always trying to 'break the mould'. Be something new and original. I felt that doing this assignment would kind of be proving that my work isn't original.
Which is kind of, of course true, because all contemporary artists are working towards something, but in order to work forwards, you have to look back.
Sorry for being so condescending.
However, my enthusiasm grew for the assignment, when I discovered the work of Philip Gurrey. (www.philipgurrey.com)
Philip Gurrey is an expressive painter, who mainly uses Oil paint as his medium.
I find his paintings extremely intriguing and fascinating.
He fragments and distorts figures creating an uneasy and empathetic quality to the human that you're looking at.
Gurrey concentrates on exaggerating certain features, such as the eyes, so that you are uniquely captivated by the portrait.
His work references the art of Goya, Rembrandt, Tonks and Saville.