It was my intention, as mentioned last week, to present artist's that burst into the scene in the 1980's and display their work from the beginning to the end of their careers. This has not proved to be as easy as I would have hoped. Not all artists have their own website which catalogs their life's work. I do not have access to books on all of these artists either. What I am left with is simple, good old-fashioned exposure. You will have to live with it.
This week we are going to look at the work of Sam Gilliam who is an African-American painter born in 1933 in the great state of Mississippi. He is a color field painter and a lyrical abstractionist.
Color Field painting is a type of abstract painting that emerged in NYC in the 1940's and 1950's and was inspired by European Modernism. It is characterized by large flat fields of solid color that are spread across or stained into the canvas to create areas of unbroken surface. The basis of this movement was more on the overall consistency of form and process.
Lyrical Abstraction emerged in the US in the 1960's and 1970's but originally began in Europe in the post war Modern painting era. This movement in the US was rich in intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, and illusionist space. It went against the Formalist, Minimalist, Pop Art, and Geometric Abstractist painters.
"Dance me, Dance You 2"
"Carousel"
"The Keels"
Sam Gilliam did most of his work on stretched, wrapped, and draped canvases. He was the first artist to introduce the idea of a painted canvas that was not stretched onto a frame base in 1965.
"Chehaw"
"Horse"
Gilliam also spent much of his career working on pieces that were sculptural or loaded with 3-D effects. He often worked with many types of materials including: polypropylene, computer generated images, metallic and iridescent acrylics, handmade papers, aluminum, steel, plywood and plastic as well as traditional canvas.
"Tre"
"Pretty Boxes"
You can find Sam Gilliam's work as part of many museum collections especially in Washington DC and New York City. I do hope you get some time to see his work in person.
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