Monday, January 3, 2011

Marisol

Usually when I discover art that I really like I just add a link to the artist's website or blog on the side bar.  But Marisol is in her 80s and she doesn't have a web site.  As an alternative I'll do a post about her work and my musing.
Marisol is considers herself to be a Pop artist.  Pop art is a form of art that depicts objects or scenes from everyday life and employs techniques of commercial art and popular illustration.  Her subject matter is certainly about contemporary life and her style reminds me of assemblage illustration.  (Polly Becker is my favorite assemblage illustrator.)
I love the way Marisol sculpts each figure with varying degrees of abstraction.  Some parts are blocky and geometric with painted or drawn surfaces and other parts are rendered three dimensionally.  I find her decision making about these choices fascinating!  I also wonder if there is an element of social commentary in her work?
Was she influenced by this ancient style of Roman sculpture?

2 comments:

lazyd0d0 said...

Marisol has an amazing "last supper" piece in the art institute of chicago. It was one of my favorites in HS. Really worth checking out if you are ever in Chicago .

Dell C. said...

lazyd0d0, that piece sounds great! I checked the AIC website, though, and didn't find that piece in their collection. Maybe it was on loan? Perhaps the site errs: http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/artist/Marisol

For anyone in Chicago, the main public library (The Harold Washington Library Center in the Loop) has an amazing Marisol sculpture on permanent display: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47607517@N04/5954420417/