Today I'm featuring some of the art & artists that inspire me. These guys are too good not to share!

Lisa Golightly :: I've known about Lisa for a while now, and have never not loved anything she does. Her work is smushy and squishy when you look at it close up, but if you take a step back, you see figures and landscapes take shape. She is fearless with her negative space, and her compositional skills are some of the best. The color-lover in me appreciates those barely-there shifts in color and monochromatic paintings (like the one in the middle, below). Her work is loose and not too fussy, which reminds me to do the same when I work on my own paintings! 

Olimpia Zagnoli :: Cool, funky, graphic. Pretty much all the things I am not. These pieces definitely give off a modern Picasso-ish vibe. It's amazing what can be created with a few blocks of solid colors. The middle and right images below are from a series called "How To Eat Spaghetti Like a Lady." So cheeky and playful, but also with lots of meaning. I'm a fan! 

Fairfield Porter :: There are a lot of older artists that have inspired my work. One of the lesser-known artists who I adore is Fairfield Porter. He was a modern Abstract Expressionist painter from New York. While his work certainly isn't abstracted into nonrepresentational work, his use of chunky areas of color and his exaggerated color palette certainly bend the rules of reality. It's representational artwork, but with a twist, and I can't help but identify with that!

Do you have a favorite artist? Comment below with anyone you think I should take a look at!