Meghan-Robbins

Friday, March 18, 2011

Elizabeth Peyton

Elizabeth Peyton was born in 1965 in Danbury, CT. Peyton got a degree from the School of Visual Arts, in New York in 1987. She is an American painter, most of her work is portraits.

"I felt that you could see a person's time in their face—especially the particular moment when they're about to become what they'll become…They just shine, and everybody around them can feel it" Peyton told Vogue about what drew her to portraiture. (Notable Biographies)

Interesting fact: “She was born with only two fingers on her right hand, and so she learned to draw with her left hand” (Notable Biographies).

Her first solo show was at Althea Viafora Gallery, 1987. Peyton was invited to show work at the 2004 Whitney Biennial in New York City. Peyton has showed work in London, New York, Paris, Florence, and more. “Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton” is a show at the New Museum, and will also travel to Minneapolis, London, and the Netherlands. The exhibition is a collection of Peyton’s work. Some of Peyton’s portraits include Kurt Cobain, Liam Gallagher, Jarvis Cocker, Eminem, Matthew Barney, Georgia O’Keefe, Marc Jacobs, and many more family, friends, celebrities, and other people.

“A painter of modern life, Peyton's small, jewel-like portraits are also intensely empathetic, intimate, and even personal. Together, her works capture an artistic zeitgeist that reflects the cultural climate of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries” (New Museum).

Peyton “is among a small group of artists to develop a peculiar hybrid of realism and conceptualism… Like Warhol, Peyton's art is at the service of the culture it captures. A brilliant colorist with a razor-sharp graphic sense, her paintings are enormously seductive in form and content, celebrating the aesthetics of youth, fame, and creative genius” (New Museum)

Peyton’s portraits are painted in a way that look accurately like the person, but not too specifically mapped out. With the grid layout, my drawings look more realistic, but almost flat, like they don’t have any life. It might be her use of color that makes her portraits look more active.

http://www.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/400 (images)

http://www.gavinbrown.biz/files/file_upload/Peyton_new.pdf (images)

http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2007-Li-Pr/Peyton-Elizabeth.html

Prince William

Jarvis

Democrats are more beautiful (after Jonathan)

Julian

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Prometheus Bound

Prometheus Bound
American Repertory Theater
Oberon, Two Arrow Street, Cambridge MA
Monday-Thursday, 7:30; Friday, 7:30 & 10:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB6KNku5q8I
http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/events/show/prometheus-bound

Prometheus Bound was adapted from Aeschylus' 2500 year old Greek play. Writer and Lyricist, Steven Sater (Spring Awakening) translated the play and transformed it into a new rock musical, with music written by Serj Tankian (System of a Down), and directed by Diane Paulus. The cast is so talented, and the story is so powerful. This is an amazing collaboration between arts and activism. The A.R.T. and Amnesty International have partnered up for this show, and each night the show is dedicated to an Amnesty case.

The eight cases are:
Jafar Panahi, an Iranian filmmaker. AI Concern: Prisoner of Conscience, Unfair Trial
Survivors of Sexual Violence, Democratic Republic of Congo AI Concern: Rape as a Weapon
Dhondup Wangchen, Tibetan filmmaker AI Concern: Prisoner of Conscience, Torture and Other Ill-Treatment, Human Rights Defenders
David Kato (deceased), Ugandan LGBT Human Rights Activist AI Concern: Human Rights Violations Against LGBT persons/Investigation into his murder
Tran Quoc Hien, Vietnamese Legal Adviser, and Doan Van Dien, and Doan Huy Chuong, Vietnamese Trade Unionists AI Concern: Prisoners of Conscience, Unfair Trial
Norma Cruz, Guatemalan Woman's Rights Activist, Leader of Fundacion Sobrevivientes AI Concern: Prisoner of Conscience, Freedom of Association, Unfair Trial, repressive legislation
Reggie Clemons, U.S.A AI Concern: Abolish Death Penalty
Nasrin Sotoudeh, Iranian Human Rights Defender and Lawyer AI Concern: Prisoner of Conscience, unfair Trial

http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/
http://www.amnestyusa.org/