FAMOUS MODERN PORTRAIT ARTISTS
Portraits still remain part of human existence and throughout history, which has developed and evolved with time itself. And as arts evolved so are new contemporary artist becoming famous.
In this work, we will be considering some great famous modern portrait artists of our time, who have in her brilliance showed the hidden splendors associated with portraiture.
Charles Thomas (Chuk Close).
Charles Thomas popularly known as Chuk Close is a famous modern portrait artist, who has achieved fame not just as an artist but also as an American painter and a photographer, and also acclaimed fame as a photorealist. Severe paralysis in 1988 due to a collapse on his spinal artery, did not stop Close from creating portraits of renowned awesomeness. Although he is known more in the later part of his career for his pictographic syntax, were he uses small colorful boxes to create a bigger pictures, a lot can be said about Charles Thomas (Chuk Close) as he has made an everlasting name for himself.
Suzi Fadel the mother of poetic nudity, is another famous modern portrait artist of this century. Suzi was born and raised in North Lebanon and later moved to Dubai in the early 1990’s, Suzi Fadel started early as an artist as can be seen in her notes that she used in her days in post primary schooling making sketches.
She is unique in her style of using paintings to tell the workings of people’s lives, revealing what is on their inside in a beautiful way using certain color palette. Most of her early inspiration was gotten from the works of Dali Salvador on surrealism, which she modified to nude surrealism, saying that she was inspired by the poetic and intellectual way La Bella Donna and birth of Venus was portrayed.
During an interview she states that the path she had chosen which is painting surreal nudity has given her the opportunity to tackle the challenge of portraying sexuality of the modern times.
From the exposure she got from her travels, she learnt new things in which helped increase her horizon, thereby giving her inspiration on what to put on canvas.
Some of her popular paintings includes: Adam and Apple, Adam and Eve, Lizzie Petra, The color of Iris, The World of Sophia and so much more
Kehinde Wiley
Born in 1977 in Los Angeles, California, Wiley is that artist that uses art or paintings to connect traditional contemporary paintings. Most of the paintings of Wiley’s are of young men from the street of his birth, where the young men are asked to pose taking their styles from the paintings of people like Grovanni Nattista Tiepole and Tiziano Veccellio, which he goes on to portray them in an abstract, colorful patterns of textile canvas with decorative.
In 2017, Kehinde Wiley became the first black artist to paint official portraits of the president for the National Portrait Gallery which was his work which featured Barack Obama. Kehinde Wiley continues making waves and resides in New York.
