Merlin Carpenter, influence #1

 >>The Estate of Sarah Cox

"Born in Pembury (UK) in 1967, lives and works in London

After leaving art school in 1989, Merlin Carpenter moved for a few years in Cologne and became assistant to Martin Kippenberger.Back in London in 1994, he began (with Dan Mitchell), Nils Norman and Josephine Pryde) in a collective self-funded out with the stage of London's leading galleries that time, the Post Studio, a space open to artists and handle all kinds of events: screenings of documentaries, "cleaning" sponsored trade shows or neighborhood.

Carpenter's approach, if not ironic, is both skeptical and positive in its approach to history, image production, especially paintings, and paternity art in general. Transposing on an abstract background of photographic images taken from fashion magazines, Carpenter questioned the history of the last modernism and its relationship to technology and goods, critically appropriating the pictorial strategies.

His paintings often involve models or actresses in seductive poses, in a setting reminiscent of the delayed deliberate distortion between figure and ground of David Salle or Picabia funds nebulous."

http://www.lnwolffeugene.com/archive/2010/03/15/merlin-carpenter.html

 >> Pluto

MY STUDIO INFLUENCES:

Merlin Carpenter (Born 1967, Kent) is an English visual artist.  Acrylic/oil on canvas.
 His paintings often show an abstract background, with a female face or full body figure showing that can sometimes disrupt, interrupt or be somewhat covered by the background.


Backgrounds were sometimes recognizable, (for example, Pluto, the one above is set in a street) but he normally used abstract techniques in an array of colors for the surroundings.   Some using monochromatic colours only for background,   Carpenter, like Pollock, liked to layer the different colours of paint.  Fashion styled poses for female figures are borrowed from magazines. Pluto is one of my favorites by Carpenter, I like how he has the female figure blocking the "scribbles" of paint. 

 >> Nueva Generacion

This painting helped me to get the female form right in my rebellion series.

Quotes by  Critics:

"Very realistically painted female figures or heads are an important element of the recent works of Merlin Carpenter. There are models in poses borrowed from fashion magazines. The experienced viewer recognizes these figures as Kate Moss or Trish Goff. They are, in contrast to earlier works, executed and fully committed to the templates used. 
You remember the composition and color in images of Abstract Expressionism, there are circular movements similar to works by Jackson Pollock before he did his "dripping" of the 50s. This overlap in painting through out- the simple scribbles on the portraits of women, play on the form or on a background for them."
"On cursory examination of photographs of these images is a bit of an impression as if they had been processed before the reproduction with the intent to disrupt or distort its contents- naive and childlike. A little reminiscent of such work of Arnulf Rainer's "Body Poses" from 30 years ago, but without the gestural brute force. Carpenter's interest lies in the demystification of the painting as a "language", it was an ironic play on the imitation of known surface effects that are completely for it "readable"."

"Beauty Ideals- Some of the work of the artist is titled after the solar system planets, "Saturn," "Jupiter," "Mars", "Earth," "Venus" or "Mercury". The use of Star Models throw these pictures if you want, even after questions on social conceptions of beauty. Standardized facial and body measurements in studied poses, which serve to showcase clothing and to make optimum sales, which today has a very high market value."

 >> The 14th Floor

These works from Carpenter all have facial expressions that convey emotion and can sometimes create a contradictory vibe in his works in relationship to the backgrounds.

Writing in Frieze art critic Katie Sonnenborn stated that a recent exhibition "continued his nuanced critique of the condition of contemporary art-making," and that, "working within the framework of the gallery, he presented a suite of canvases that cast doubt on current systems of cultural reception and consumption.”  

The Rebellion Series:  My figures are female and at a young stage in life where they feel the need to defy someone or something. Whether that may be rules or ideals defined by society or expectations from parental figures and peers.
  Acrylic on canvas and cardboard 
I liked to see what shapes of the body I could highlight by using lighter paint in certain areas.
The work is meant to be expressive of emotion, but that emotion is up to the viewer to decide.