Painting

Ed Paschke received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1961 and his MFA in 1970. His paintings have evolved with the times; from his earlier paintings that depict characters on the fringe of society, to the more recent images that utilize new computer technology. He exhibited with other artists whose work, like Paschke's, shared references to non-Western and surrealist art, appropriated images from popular culture, and employed brilliant color throughout a busy and carefully worked surface.

Spanish painter Chema Cobo discusses his early years of studying and creating art in Southern Spain. His career began in the mid-1970s, exhibiting at the Buades and Vandrés galleries, along with a generation of now-established artists. His work began showing outside of Spain in the ’80s. Cobo also talks about the ways that his Spanish background and identity has informed his work.

A historical interview originally recorded in 1994.

Chicago-based painter Hollis Sigler discusses the influences and development of her work, from her early huge paintings of underwater swimmers to the wild, explosive, scratchy, dramatic autobiographical paintings of interiors for which she is known. “The sexuality that exists in the drawings isn’t meant as a focus, except for the feeling part of it. How it’s read by other people I never intended to be important. Some people look at them and wonder if it is a man and a woman or a woman and a woman—what’s the sexuality of these people?

Luis Cruz Azaceta’s paintings and mixed media works use the recurring theme of the displaced individual. Marked by his own exile from Cuba—he was born there in 1942 and emigrated to the U.S. in 1960, in the wake of Castro’s take-over—the artist realized that home is something he carries with him from place to place. Through his piercing expressionism, Azaceta depicts the frailty of human existence in a world full of social anarchy, historically mandated violence, and natural chaos.

Interview by Bob Loescher.

A historical interview originally recorded in 1989.

A celebrated landscape painter hypnotizes through brush stroke and voice.

This title is also available on Sterling Ruby: Interventionist Works 2001-2002.

Judy Chicago’s large-scale, collaborative artwork has brought greater prominence to feminist themes and craft arts such as needlework and ceramics. Her most famous work, The Dinner Party (1979), was an enormous collaboration with hundreds of volunteers including ceramicists, china painters and needleworkers. The monumental finished piece has place settings for 39 mythical and historical famous women, writing them back into the heroic history usually reserved for men. Earlier in her career, Chicago was part of the Finish Fetish movement within Minimalism.

Joyce Kozloff was at the forefront of the 1970s pattern and decoration movement—a feminist effort to incorporate typically “feminine” and popular decorative arts into the fine arts. She has been involved with public art and murals for more than two decades. In this video, Kozloff prepares and installs her mural Around the World on the 44th Parallel, which features sections of maps from 12 cities around the world on the same latitude. The work was constructed at the Tile Guild in Los Angeles and installed at the library at Minnesota State University-Mankato.