Elizabeth Peyton, Live to Ride (E.P.), 2003
Elizabeth Peyton remains another one of my favorite contemporary artists. Her simple paintings and vivid colors capture my attention among the grayish city life that I live, but as I spend more time with her paintings I begin to feel something we've talked about in class.
I had found the person that best displays the modern world. Her tribute to modern art reminds me of Monet with splashes of expressionistic qualities as well. But I have a hard time relating to the paintings of Monet because it brings an emotion of nostalgia toward the innocent and more simplistic aspects of the 1800s. But as for the present, I feel that Elizabeth Peyton has captured the modern individual in these snapshot-like paintings.
Elizabeth Peyton, Prince WM and Prin Harry, 2000.
Her simple paint sketches remind me of impressionism. The hard brush strokes, the bright colors, the attention to light. All of these show themselves in Peyton's Prince WM and Prince Harry (above). But the color warps into an unrealistic realm where imagination and emotion live. Layers of color overlap each other creating depth on a single plain of focus. This is one of my favorite parts of Elizabeth's work.
The flatness of her images allude to artists that precede her but her style of flattening transcends that of Andy Warhol's hollow copies or Roy Lichtenstein's comic book look-a-likes. Her lines and colors together create a beauty far more grand than any postmodern artist could reach. Her attention to a shared humanistic beauty between all her subjects fills my eyes giving me hope rather than just presenting what the modern world looks like.
Elizabeth Peyton, Nick and Patti, 2007
There is no telling where Elizabeth will end up in the next few years and I will definitely have my eye on her work through the changes that inhabit the art world today.
To learn more about Elizabeth Peyton and her work, please visit her Walker Art Center Gallery Page. And to listen to her talk about her art, visit New Museum's Audio Interview with her.
