Artists To Base My Work Off

Martina Shapiro

Shapiro is a Czech Republic born artist, who now lives and paints in Vancouver. ‘My paintings are influenced mostly by Fauvism and Expressionism, but also by Art Deco, Pop-Art and the old masters.’ She uses bright colours in her paintings to convey certain emotions, and is inspired by Picasso, Matisse and Mark Rothko, among others.

The subject matter along with the bright colours was what inspired me about Shapiro’s work. The fact that the blues and pinks used on the women she painted could convey such an empowered and passionate feeling was what I wanted to carry over into my own work.

Helena Wierzbicki

Wierzbicki was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she later studied with the Argentine masters, Luis Barragan and Elio Eros Vitali. During her youth she participated in many art shows, locally and internationally. Currently, she uses oil and acrylic for her paintings, and she inspired me for the same reasons Shapiro did. Although they have a very different style, similar emotions can still be conveyed through her use of colour and composition, and I wanted to take Wierzbicki’s less cartoonish style over into my work.

Henri Matisse 

Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse  was a French artist, who was most commonly known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, however he is known primarily as a painter. 

Matisse used pure colours and the white of exposed canvas to create a light-filled sense in his Fauve paintings. Rather than using modelling or shading to lend volume and structure to his pictures, Matisse used contrasting areas of pure, unmodulated colour. These ideas continued to be important to him throughout his career. 

The bold colours in most of Matisse's paintings are intriguing to me, and the way they complement each other to highlight vibrancy makes his paintings eye catching. I also feel that, depending on the colours used, Matisse is able to connote different moods. 

Henri Matisse created the painting 'Woman With a Hat' which depicts his wife. It was a piece classified as fauvism art, because of the complimentary colours used, such as blues and oranges, and greens and reds. The bright colours conjure an intriguing and unique vibe, which Matisse may have used to capture the essence of his wife. 

Edvard Munch 

Edvard Munch was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose extreme evocative treatment of psychological themes built upon some of the main principles and beliefs of late 19th-century Symbolism and hugely influenced German Expressionism in the early 20th century. One of his best known works is The Scream, painted in 1893. 

Munch intended for his intense, vivid colours, semi-abstraction and mysterious, often ambiguous themes to function as symbols of universal significance, meaning any viewer could relate to or understand the ideas presented. Thus his drawings, paintings, and prints take on the quality of psychological monumental pieces: having originated in Munch's personal experiences, they nevertheless bear the power to express, and maybe even reduce, any viewer's own emotional or psychological condition. 

I am especially inspired by the themes presented in a lot of Munch's art. Most of his pieces illustrate a serious psychological tone and I find the presentation and reflection upon the meaning interesting. 

The scream is an ambiguous, psychologically challenging piece, used to conjure emotion among the viewers. The main subject, or the screaming figure is just off centre, immediately creating an odd feeling. The more earthy colour scheme used creates a sense of drabness in the painting, and the viewer may interpret the orange swirly sky as some sort of storm, reflecting the screaming mans mood. The wistful, spiralling lines in the painting may connote a feeling of being shaken up as the lines used are particularly wavy, and un-neat.