Dianna Molzan | |
---|---|
Born | 1972 |
Nationality | American |
Known for | Visual Art |
Dianna Molzan (born 1972) is an American contemporary artist and painter based in Los Angeles. Thus far in her career, she is known for exploring the relationship between painting and sculpture through deconstruction and materialization of traditional painting materials and tools.
Molzan is an adjunct Professor of Visual Art at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Molzan's paintings are often considered as more of a three-dimensional object than a two dimensional surfaces on the wall. [1] Referred to as carrying a sculptural quality, Molzan's paintings are grounded within the practice of painting through the materials she uses, such as oil paints, canvas, linen, and canvas frame. [2]
Molzan's pieces consist of a process of deconstruction of the traditional elements of painting, which are then recombined into a new composition. She creates a juxtaposition between the mediums of sculpture and painting through the alteration of the physical state of the canvas. [3]
Molzan's work is associated with the techniques of impressionism, abstract expressionism, and minimalism. [3]
Dianna Molzan was born in 1972 in Tacoma, Washington. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2001 and also attended the Universität der Künste in Berlin. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California, writing her senior thesis, How the Frame was One, on the development both theoretical and symbolic framing devices within art, primarily focusing on two works: Georges Seurat's La Grande Jatte (1884) and Eva Hesse's Hang Up (1966). Her first solo exhibition was at Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles, in 2009.
Molzan's solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art titled "Bologna Meissen" in 2011 was her first solo museum exhibition and debut in New York. According to the Whitney Museum, Molzan "uses a variety of material approaches that differ from one work to the next, each painting exhibits a subtle precision in its intention and execution. Although she works with traditional materials, such as oil on linen, she approaches her canvases irreverently, invoking elements of fashion, the decorative arts, ceramics, and popular design." [4] Molzan chose the title for "Bologna Meissen" because of "two cities that are the origins of two of [Molzan's] biggest influences—Bologna, Italy, for the painter Giorgio Morandi and Meissen, Germany, for Meissen porcelain ware." [5]
In conversation with curator Margot Norton of the Whitney Museum, Molzan states, " I limit myself to traditional painting materials because I want to show that it isn’t the materials that have changed over the centuries, but the thinking about the materials and the philosophy behind their application. Oil paint and linen and the wooden support are all inherited materials that date back to the Renaissance and continue through modernism and all the other styles of painting that are radically different from one another but use the same stuff. I love that I can paint-splatter a canvas and make it look like hard plastic by using more or less the same materials Rousseau used to depict the forest of Fontainebleau in the nineteenth century." [5]
Helen Frankenthaler was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades, she spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work. Frankenthaler began exhibiting her large-scale abstract expressionist paintings in contemporary museums and galleries in the early 1950s. She was included in the 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition curated by Clement Greenberg that introduced a newer generation of abstract painting that came to be known as color field. Born in Manhattan, she was influenced by Greenberg, Hans Hofmann, and Jackson Pollock's paintings. Her work has been the subject of several retrospective exhibitions, including a 1989 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and been exhibited worldwide since the 1950s. In 2001, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
Shaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round panel or canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance painters, sometimes chose this format for madonna paintings. Alternatively, canvases may be altered by losing their flatness and assuming a three-dimensional surface. Or, they can do both. That is, they can assume shapes other than rectangles, and also have surface features that are three-dimensional. Arguably, changing the surface configuration of the painting transforms it into a sculpture. But shaped canvases are generally considered paintings.
Toba Khedoori is an artist of Iraqi heritage, known primarily for highly detailed mixed-media paintings executed on large sheets of wax-coated paper.
Kim Dingle is a Los Angeles-based contemporary artist working across painting, sculpture, photography, found imagery, and installation. Her practice explores themes of American culture, history, and gender politics through both figurative and abstract approaches.
Billy Al Bengston was an American visual artist and sculptor who lived and worked in Venice, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. Bengston was probably best known for work he created that reflected California's "Kustom" car and motorcycle culture. He pioneered the use of sprayed layers of automobile lacquer in fine art and often used colors that were psychedelic and shapes that were mandala-like. ARTnews referred to Bengston as a "giant of Los Angeles's postwar art scene."
Lawrence W. Carroll was an Australian-born American painter who established a career on both sides of the Atlantic. His works are held in museums around the world and he notably was included in major exhibitions such as Documenta IX and the Venice Biennale In his early career Carroll worked as an illustrator for The Progressive, The Village Voice, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The Nation, Reason, Spin, Ray Gun, and other periodicals drawing political illustrations and notably he designed the artwork for the American thrash metal band Slayer's album covers. However it is Carroll's career as a painter that is most significant. His approach to materials, to the scale and structure of the objects is highly distinctive.
Henrietta Mary Shore was a Canadian-born artist who was a pioneer of modernism. She lived a large part of her life in the United States, most notably California.
Richard Ernst Artschwager was an American painter, illustrator and sculptor. His work has associations with Pop Art, Conceptual art and Minimalism.
Gloria Graham is an American artist based in New Mexico. Her work includes sculpture, painting, and photography.
Carmen Herrera was a Cuban-born American abstract, minimalist visual artist and painter. She was born in Havana and lived in New York City from the mid-1950s. Herrera's abstract works brought her international recognition late in life.
Claire Falkenstein was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, jewelry designer, and teacher, most renowned for her often large-scale abstract metal and glass public sculptures. Falkenstein was one of America's most experimental and productive 20th-century artists.
Sarah Cain is an American contemporary artist.
Laura Owens is an American painter, gallery owner and educator. She emerged in the late 1990s from the Los Angeles art scene. She is known for large-scale paintings that combine a variety of art historical references and painterly techniques. She lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Liz Larner is an American installation artist and sculptor living and working in Los Angeles.
Mary Corse is an American artist who lives and works in Topanga, California. Fascinated with perceptual phenomena and the idea that light itself can serve as both subject and material in art, Corse's practice can be seen as existing at an crossroads between American Abstract Expressionism and American Minimalism. She is often associated with the male-dominated Light and Space art movement of the 1960s, although her role has only been fully recognized in recent years. She is best known for her experimentation with radiant surfaces in minimalist painting, incorporating materials that reflect light such as glass microspheres. Corse initially attended University of California, Santa Barbara starting in 1963. She later moved on to study at Chouinard Art Institute, earning her B.F.A. in 1968.
Analia Saban is a contemporary conceptual artist who was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but is currently living in Los Angeles, California, United States. Her work takes traditional artistic media such as drawing, painting and sculpture and pushes their limits as a scientific experimentation with art making. Because of her pushing the limits with different forms of art, Saban has taken the line that separated the different art forms and merged them together.
Edda Renouf is an American painter and printmaker. Renouf creates minimalist abstract paintings and drawings developed from her close attention to subtle properties of materials, such as the woven threads in linen canvas and the flax and cotton fibers of paper. Renouf often alters these supports by removing threads from the weave of a canvas, or in her drawings, creating lines by incising the paper.
Lucy Dodd is an American painter and installation artist. Dodd synthesizes pigments from various organic and inorganic matter. Her work frequently invokes art historical and mythological symbolism. Dodd has been critically compared to mid-century artists Cy Twombly, Sigmar Polke, Robert Ryman, and Willem de Kooning.
Mary Obering was an American painter focusing mainly on geometric abstraction.
Harmonia Rosales is an American artist from Chicago.