Fiona Rae

Fiona Rae is a British abstract painter and is one of the Young British Artists. She was born in Hong Kong in 1963 and moved to England in 1970. Her art education included Croydon College of Art (1983-84) and Goldsmiths College (1984-87).

Fiona Rae was one of the artists in the seminal Freeze exhibition curated by Damien Hirst in 1988.

Young British Artists or YBAs (also Brit artists and Britart) is a group of conceptual artists, painters, sculptors, and installation artists based in the United Kingdom. The term Young British Artists is derived from art shows of that name staged at the (Charles) Saatchi Gallery from 1992 onwards, which brought the artists fame and recognition.

Fiona Rae was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1991 and for the Austrian Eliette Von Karajan Prize for Young Painters in 1993. She was commissioned by Tate Modern to create a 10-metre triptych Shadowland for the restaurant there in 2002.

Fiona Rae is now a Royal Academician and also a Trustee of the Tate Gallery.


Painting (low resolution copy) by Fiona Rae, Untitled (yellow), 1990.

"I like lively, heartfelt and witty art that can also be cool and ironic. Doesn't necessarily have to be painting, but that's my favorite thing, partly because I think it's the hardest way to be fresh and original in the 21st century."
-- Fiona Rae, during a 2005 residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Enjoy a visit to Fiona Rae's studio; video from The Tate.



See my earlier post & video on Damien Hirst's Auction Gamble.

See a video of installation of Damien Hirst's colored-dot painting "John, John" at MoMA's Color Chart exhibition.

Robert Motherwell, Bio and Video

Short bio & video of Robert Motherwell's work:

Robert Motherwell (b. January 24, 1915; d. July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Apart from his paintings, Motherwell also made numerous drawings, prints and inspired collages of ripped paper which incorporate paint.

Robert Motherwell was originally an academic, who studied philosophy at Stanford and Harvard University, before changing his field to art and art history at Columbia University, studying under Meyer Schapiro. He wrote extensively, giving the abstract expressionist movement intellectual weight and investing his own work with literary and historical parallels.

His most famous works are a series entitled "Elegy to the Spanish Republic," a homage to Picasso's "Guernica."

The Abstract Expressionists, or New York School as they are also called, broke new ground. Although their styles and philosophies varied widely, they "were united in their revolt against conventional art and in their commitment to a spontaneous freedom of expression."[1] Robert Motherwell, married to fellow artist Helen Frankenthaler, was one of the principal members of this movement, which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Barnett Newman.

Here's a very moving and beautiful video of Robert Motherwell's art from 'artpopulus' with music by Leó Ferré, Ne chantez pas la mort.




"Abstract Expressionism was a movement in American painting that developed in New York in the 1940s. Most Abstract Expressionists were energetic (or 'gestural') painters. They invariably used large canvases and applied paint rapidly and with force, sometimes using large brushes, sometimes dripping or even throwing paint directly onto the canvas. This expressive method of painting was often considered as important as the painting itself. Other Abstract Expressionist artists were concerned with adopting a peaceful and mystical approach to a purely abstract image. Not all the work from this movement was abstract or expressive, but it was generally believed that the spontaneity of the artists' approach to their work would draw from and release the creativity of their unconscious minds."[2]



To take a look at other videos with my posts:

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England & video

Damien Hirst & video

Pablo Picasso & video

Monet's Garden at Giverny & video

Vincent van Gogh Said ... & video

Major Cézanne Exhibit & video


References:
[1] Judith Clark, The Illustrated History of Art (New York: Mallard Press, 1992), 199.

[2] The Art Book (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1996), Glossary.