Kevin Keane, Response Contemporary Artist

Do – Ho Suh’s large, meticulously crafted sculptures address the dynamic of personal space versus public space. One of his pieces titled ‘cause and effect’ is an upside down red and yellow cylinder spanning from the floor to the ceiling. I find the way in which the piece is so top heavy interesting. This piece seems as though it needs to be viewed in its appropriate setting to be fully analyzed. Another piece titled ‘uni-forms’ is of a series of coat jackets hung up as if they are on display in the front of a department store. This piece immediately brings the Dada “readymades” to mind. The way in which he uses coat jackets as a symbol for his piece is similar to the work of Marcel Duchamp in his use of premade products to be conceptualized as artwork.
Similar to Do – Ho Suh, Andrea Zittel takes influence form the Dada movement. Her work features environments created out of “readymades.” The Zen school of Buddhism inspires her work. Her clean aesthetic and the way in which these products are presented to me represent serenity. She uses objects together to create environments that represent her beliefs in them.
“Zoopsia,” meaning visual hallucination of animals, is a body of work by the contemporary artist, Tim Hawkinson. In this body of work he takes images and uses them out of context to make the illusion of animals making the title “Zoopsia” appropriate. In a different way then the two previous artists, Hawkinson uses images, rather than objects, to represent something that it’s not.
Laylah Ali creates gouache paintings that she uses meticulous detail in the subject matter, color choice, and brushes that she uses. A similar style of meticulous detail is seen in Georges Seuret’s work, specifically “Sunday Afternoon on the island of La grande jatte.” In this piece Seuret construct the image with pointillism that reminds me of the detail that Ali uses in her work.