Lys Bleu Designs

Favorite artists: Old/Famous and Current/Local

These are a few of my absolute favorite artists…famous ones that I love, and local ones that I love. The photos I chose (at least for the famous ones, it was harder to find photos for the local ones) are not necessarily the most representative of the artist, but personal favorites.  I have attached links to each of the photos that will take you to what I feel is the best website for that artist…Frida for some reason does not have a nice website (that I could find), so her link takes you to her Wikipedia page.

Andy Warhol has been a favorite for a while.  When I was learning art history, I learned more about other artists, so he did not become absolute favorite until later in life.  What I love about him has a lot to do with his use of color, because I am crazy about color.  I also love the fact that the other artists at the time hated him for what he was doing; they thought he was selling himself.  But he produced some ridiculously wonderful art from it, completely unique.  He is probably one of the most recognizable artists.  I chose this photo to represent him because everyone knows the popular ones and few have seen this series (called Kiku), and I love flowers just a little more than I love color, and the whole series is positively magnificent.

Frida is also wonderful.  My love for her is mainly because of who she is, not as much her art.  I find her fascinating.  She also was very unique and her art is very easily recognizable.  I often wonder what was going through her head when she was making her paintings, or just in life in general.  I admire her for being very strong, and not being afraid to expose her soul to the world.  In this photo, I actually think she looks pretty.  Maybe she just exaggerated her unibrow a little too much in her paintings…

So now on to local…

I absolutely love Buzz Siler of Siler Studios.  I found him because on one First Thursday, we were super late getting downtown, and we parked super far away from where we were trying to go (well, not super, but several blocks), which happened to be right next to his studio, and they happened to be one of the few galleries that were still open.  So Buzz and his wife (who also paints) offered us wine and snacks, and talked to us about their art.  I love his art especially because I have never seen anyone with the same technique as him.  He uses both oil and acrylic, and adds so much water that they run all over the canvas and down the sides.  The sides of his canvases are actually one of my favorite aspects of his art.  I also loved him because he asked my name, and then showed me a painting that was of a woman from the back, and told me about how a guy had seen that and said it looked like his girlfriend, Adria (which is close to my name, but I find it prettier).  Later on, I discovered that Mr. Siler is a fairly well-known Portland artist, because his art was up in some Street of Dreams condos in the Pearl.  I have also seen it other places.  He is fantastic.

I LOVE Brenda’s art, and it is not very expensive and I have been wanting to buy one forever, but I just can’t pick my favorite (or even a couple favorites!!) I love her because she does all these beautiful girls, and her style is very cute, but I especially love them because a lot of them have huge flowers in their hair, or flower tattoos, or flowers just somewhere. And if you didn’t catch it earlier, I LOVE flowers. And I especially love flowers in gorgeous girls’ hair. And flower tattoos. Anyways…I have not met her because I am shy, but I have seen her art every First Thursday, and possibly other art events, in a Street of Dreams house also, and at Urban Waxx. She is also pretty famous for a local artist. But her style agrees with my aesthetic interests quite perfectly.

My other absolute favorite that I have been eyeing at First Thursdays forever, but his art is a little more expensive, is Pepe Moscoso of StudioLupa. I love his collages in particular; I’ve always loved old-fashioned drawings of people, and he collages those onto his photos, and the entire piece is usually on some sort of recycled piece of wood, and is just all around amazing. I have barely met him; mainly just asked for his card, which by the time I got to his booth he was out, several months in a row, and then I finally got one. Except it was for Muluk, which I guess is his [wife/sister]’s company (I can’t remember, it’s been a while since I talked to him), and she also makes wonderful things that I love…super cute upcycled hats and ties with old-fashioned drawings on them…just wonderful. So anyways, I love both of them (and you should check out Muluk’s Etsy also), but I love his collages just a little bit more. Someday I aspire to buy one…

So that is my tiny gallery of favorite artists.  There are, of course, lots of others, but these are most favorite of the favorite. <3