My current obsession: Jason Brinkerhoff.
California-born Brinkerhoff and his Untitled nudes take us into a world of surreal and convoluted beauty, where swooping lines of charcoal, fuzzy clouds of color, and distortions (cuts and substitutions of body parts) explore art’s exploration of western femininity, and western femininity itself. De Kooning’s brushwork and Klimt’s modest nymphs lie side by side with the deconstructed physiognomy of Picasso.
Before 2011, the self-taught painter from Menlo Park had never had his work on display. Nobody knows what he did, apart from collecting non-professional photographs and accumulating old fashion magazines that were displayed in 2012 at the Chelsea gallery ZieherSmith. His works take form on aged paper and pages of antique books, as if his language, that rather resembles the process of street art, were challenging history, searching for its position within it. Employing diverse materials, he captures not only the seduction latent in select poses, but also the sensuality of dynamic line work in graphite, ink, colored pencil, wax pastel and acrylic.
“Jason obsessively reworks his images; often times producing hundreds of drawings inspired by one simple pose in a Picasso painting. It’s as if he is curating an image, drawing from historical references, or from his own point of view, allowing all of these histories to co-exist.” - Matthew Higgs (Director who discovered Brinkerhoff)
I'm not sure if it's his subject [the nude woman - in all it's history], or his technique that could almost be Dada-inspired, or the fact that he is so humble as was making art alone in his home with no real intention to become a famous artist, that gets me most. But, regardless, I'm in LOVE.
See more of his work on his website here.