Crystal Kan- Contemporary Artist Videos and Articles

Do-Ho-Suh creates sculptures that deal with space, memory and repetition. Much of his work is affected by his memories of his life in Korea as well as the heritage taught by his parents. He deals a lot with identity and the relationship between the individual and the collective. Perhaps this is affected by the homogeneity that is emphasized in Asian culture, where much of the population looks the same yet have unique qualities in each person. He states that he is influenced Felix Gonzalez Torres, who has the same style of minimalist sculptures.

Andrea Zittel reminds me a lot of time based art in terms of setting conditions for herself to live through and creating an intimate experience for the audience to interact with. Her work involves adapting a limiting environment to accommodate human needs. Zittel's work is quite utilitarian by creating multiple purposes for one piece. For example, in the Art 21 video, they were drinking out of bowls that look small enough to be a glass for beverages but also large enough to be a bowl for meals. Zittel has a lot of control over her work, which creates isolation as a byproduct.

Tim Hawkinson has a lot of organic shapes and textures in his sculptures. He tends to use his own body or found objects that are readily available for him to use. There is a lot of transformation of his body to create other objects, such as animals. He is also inspired create environments that involve sound, including creating his own instruments. I can't exactly think of a precise predecessor for Hawkinson in art, but when I think of using one own body in art, I tend to think of Cindy Sherman. But when I first saw his "Zoopsia" series, I immediately thought of Georgia O' Keefe in terms of colors and organic shapes.

Layla Ali's art style is inspired by graphic art and comic strips in the newspaper. She pays a lot of attention to detail in terms of colors by keeping a log on how she makes certain colors and using a different brush for each color. Ali's work is inspired by her past and social commentary, especially since she grew up as the only black person in her school. Much of her art illustrates the before or after of an act of violence to her imaginary green and blue men. It seems that her art is much inspired like many of her African American predecessors in terms of race and power struggles experienced from life.