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Louise Bourgeois

Louise Josephine Bourgeois was born on Christmas Day (25th of December), 1911, Paris, France. She was a French-American artist and sculptor, mostly known for both her modern and contemporary art, and for her spider structures, titled 'Maman' which lead to her being nicknamed 'Spiderwoman'. In 2011, one of her spider works were sold for $10.7 million, a new record price for the artist at auction, and the highest price paid for a work by a woman. Today, she is recognised as the founder of confessional art. After moving to NYC with her American husban, Robert Goldwater in the late 1940s, she turned to sculputre. Although her work is mostly abstract, they are suggestive of the human figure and express themes of anxiety, loneliness and betrayal. Her work was inspired by her childhood trauma of discovering that her English governess was also her father's mistress.

Bourgeois died of heart failure on the 31st of May 2010 (TODAY, TWO YEARS AGO!!) at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. She had continued to create more artwork until the day of her death, her final pieces were just finished the week before she had passed away.

Personal Analytical Framework:
The Spider was the sculptor that represented her mother, she was her best friend. As a spider Louise mother was also a weaver keeping things in place and in charge of the tapestry workshop, she was also very intelligent. The spider symbol also symbolised as helpful and protection just like Louise mother.

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon was born on the 28th of October, 1909, Dublin. He is a Irish-born British figurative painted mostly known for his bold, graphic and emotionally raw imagery. His work is somewhat abstract, and appears isolated in glass or steel geometrical cages set against flat, nondescript backgrounds. His painting career started in his early 20's and had been earning a living through interior decoration and furniture/rug designing.

In 1964, he met George Dyer which he claimed breaking into his house. He was about 30 years old and was raised in the East End of London in a family steeped in crime. He lived his life drifting between theft, juvenile detention centres and jail. Francis had usually been with older men before he met Dyer. In 1974, he met another young man named John Edwards who he formed on of his most longest friendships. 

Francis' chronic asthma, which he had for his whole life, had developed into a respiratory condition leading him to an inability to talk or breathe properly. 

Personal Analytical Framework:
Most of Francis Bacon's work consist of paintings of his lovers and friends. Ever since the 1960's, these were typically based on photographs he commissioned from John Deakin. Bacon often directed
these photographs in order to obtain the poses that would best suit the paintings he had in mind.

Chuck Close

Chuck Close was born on the 5th of July, 1940, Monroe, Washington. He suffers from severe dyslexia, causing him to do poorly in school but he then solace in making art. He earnt his MFA from Yale in 1964 and placed in the American art world by creating large-scale, photo-realist portraits that have a blurred effect creating a thin distinction between photography and painting. In 1988, he experienced a severe health issue where he suffered a sudden rupture of a spinal artery. After this incident, he was left almost entirely paralyzed but after rounds of physical therapy, he became permanently confined to a wheelchair but eventually regained partial use of his limbs.

Personal Analysis:

A reading on Close’s work would be incomplete with no discussion of the incident that had left him paralysed, his inability to recognise faces and the subsequent systems that the artist has created to help him navigate in an able bodied world.

Keith Haring

Keith Haring was an American pop/graffiti artist who was born on the 4th of May, 1958, Reading, Pennsylvania and died on the 16th of February, 1990 (Aged 31) in New York City. He was the oldest of 4 children, and was interested in art at an early age. At age 19, in 1978, he moved to New York City, where he studied at the School of Arts and was inspired by graffiti.

After Haring was diagnosed of HIV 1980’s, Haring did as much as he could to promote safe sex within the community.He was successful in bringing a safe sex message to a wider audience and garnered public attention of a disease that was up until then, considered a gay man’s illness. Haring’s passion for social and political change was the catalyst behind many of his public works. 

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo, whose real name is Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderon was a mexican painter who was born on the 6th of July 1907, Cayocoan, Mexico and died on the 13th of July, 1954. Kahlo was considered one of Mexico's greatest artists. She began to paint after she got into a tragic bus accident which left her with severe injuries. Later on in her life, she married a communist artist Diego Rivera in 1929. Her artwork was mainly displayed in Paris and Mexico before she died in 1958.

"The Little Deer" 1946

Frida Kahlo's artwork "The Little Deer" depicts a deer in the forest with Kahlo's own face used as the deer's. There are also nine arrows sticking out of the deer's back causing it to bleed. Behind the trees of the forest is a bright blue ocean where the painting appears to be set in daytime along with a thunderstorm. The painting seems to be hopeful as the deer leaps and the brightness of the blue ocean, but is then turned around by the arrows in the dear and the thunderstorm.

"The Broken Column" 1944

This artwork of Frida Kahlo's displays the misery that she has experienced throughout her life. She has painted nails pierced into her body, representing the pain she has been through. The column that looks as if it is holding her up and supporting her, has relevance to the horrific accident she was involved in at a young age. The straps around her body could be a metaphor for being trapped or held back.

Jean Michel Basquiat

Introduction: Jean-Michel Basquiat is a African-Puerto Rican NYC Neo-Expressionist painter who was born on the 22nd of December. He started off as a graffiti artist in NYC in the late `70s and later became an acclaimed Neo-expressionist and Primitivist painter by the 1980s. Basquiat died, at the age of 27, of a heroin overdose in his art studio in Great Jones Street in NYC's NoHo neighbourhood.

"Untitled Head-Skull" (1984)

"Untitled Skull" is a work of Basquiat's that features a human head that almost looks like a skull which is kept in place with numerous stitches. The head is shown broken at several places, the teeth, near the left eye, and towards the back of the skull. "Untitled Head-Skull" does not have a certain skin or bone tone colour. Instead, it consists of a variety of raw colours, as if it represents rot and decay. These features give it an appearance of 'Folk' or 'Tribal Art.' The most remarkable aspect of "Untitled Head-Skull," is the eyes, which are looking down towards the floor. The combination of sad eyes and broken teeth is more than likely a representation of a blend of gloom and fear.

"Untitled (Fallen Angel)" 1981

"Untitled Fallen Angel" is one of Basquiat's well known paintings that looks like some sort of evil angel. The facial expression is displaying pain or anguish hence the open red mouth and wide eyes. The body seems to be transparent making the insides very clear to see. This might represent a longing for people to see whats inside a person rather than the outer beauty.  The red, orange and yellow mixing of colours make the wings of the angel appear to have been set on fire. The whole combination of the transparent body, burning wings and painful facial expression can likely symbolise the feelings of pain and anger.