Anne Lindberg "Raume Yellow"

Linberg says "I believe in the potential of action and one material having many voices." Her installations, particular this one, are incredibly memorizing and very minimalist. For this piece she has just used thread to create space that has the same characteristics as drawings. When her work is three-dimensional it still has the same qualities as some of her two-dimensional drawings. She draws a space instead of sculpting one.

Dan Steinhilber

Dan Steinhilber's favorite material is plastic. Many of his installations deal with plastic bags and air. Part of what Steinhilber wants to do is give the viewer the experience of watching air move. For example in the installation Breathing Room (below), he uses fans to either suck the plastic away from the viewer of blow it towards him.

Brad Downey

Downey, like specter, creates street art with renewed originality. Sticking with the illegal theme, Downey is most known for removing and repositioning bricks into sculptures. He calls the work "Spontaneous Sculptures." His work does have the same sort of spontaneity that  seemed present in the early graffiti street art.

Gabriel "Specter" Reese

Specter is a part of a new movement in street art. Graffiti in the traditional sense is losing its pizazz. Specter is taking the concept of graffiti into three dimensions. He creates sculptures from found material and displays them in public areas throughout New York and Toronto. 

Jon Pylypchuk, "Press a Weight Through Life, and I Will Watch This Crush You"

Pylypchuk creates little creatures that border on puppet- or stuffed-animal-like. His hand can be easily seen in his work, not in a way that suggests poor craftsmanship but in a way that denotes a raw, intuitive connectedness with his materials. This aspect of his work is what draws me. Contrary to  Kiki Smith's work, Pylypchuk creates environments for his installations, so to give the viewer the sensation that he is looking into a world where the same societal principles apply but is still unique from ours

Kiki Smith

Kiki Smith's work fascinates me for multiple reasons. The connections she draws between nature and humanity are very interesting and hit a tender nerve in the viewer and even border on grotesque at times.

She masterfully creates an object that stands on its own, has no environment. But we get an entire narrative out of it. Her objects do not exist in our world but they make a world of their own; we need nothing else. Her compositions give simply the bare minimum information but are more engaging than many  artists 'more complex work.

Janine Antoni

This work is perhaps Antoni's most famous. She first caste one block of lard and one block of chocolate. Then chewed off parts of each and spit it out. The gnawed lard was then turned into lipstick, and chocolate into special Valentine's chocolates.

With this piece Antoni painted an entire gallery floor using her own her. The gallery was open while she painted as part of the show.

This piece is a rawhide mold of Antoni's body. She soaked the leather in water and then had it placed over her body. She stayed in this position for hours until the leather dried to the shape of herself.

Her work is interesting because of the level of physical involvement Antoni has with her art. She is almost always creating an incredibly strenuous task for herself as, which becomes as much the art as the finished result is.

Rachel Whiteread

Rachel Whiteread does mold-making and casting work. Her art thinks about space in a unique way. Most of the time she does not caste actual objects but the negative space around them. Looking at her pieces forces one to begin looking at space in an entirely different manner.
The above piece is the inside of an abandoned house caste in cement.
The piece below is the space between bookshelves in a library caste in plaster.

Eric Yahnker's "Cracks of Dawn"

Yahnker's work is interesting on many levels. Perhaps one of the most of ways is his incredible ability to render hyper-realistically. His work is incredibly detailed and realistic.

In edition to his realistic drawings, there is the blaring surrealist influence in "Cracks of Dawn." But after the sarcastic tone, surrealist approach and high level of detail, there is the joke. Yahnker's work particularly "Crack's of Dawn" is a hilarious critique of today's society.

http://artforum.com/picks/section=la#picks27506

Cai Guo-Qiang

http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/10484/cai-guo-qiang-inopportune.html
This piece Cai Guo-Quiang's explosive technique translated into a sculpture and to an extent an animation. Guo-Quiang typically uses materials that literally explode, gunpowder. This process is incredibly interesting and is as much a part of the viewing experience as one of his finished paintings. There crowds of people watching him "paint" on of his installations.

  http://obviousmag.org/en/archives/2010/06/cai_guo-qiang_-_explosive_art.html

Mark Jenkins

Mark Jenkins's work is made interesting by its environment. He uses the very simple process of tape-casting to create life-like forms and structures. But they are brought to life because of where they are displayed. His work is like graffiti in that is on the street and in every day life but it has its own unique element because it is sculptural. I appreciate and respect the public aspect of his work; he makes it for everyone not just the small perecentage of the population that will wonder into a gallery.

Andy Goldsworthy

http://www.rwc.uc.edu/artcomm/web/w2005_2006/maria_Goldsworthy/TEST/index.html This is Andy Goldsworthy's website. I chose this artist because his process reminds me of both Tara Donovan's and Bill Woodrow's. All three artist's, especially Woodrow and Goldsworthy, use materials that are at their immediate reach; the difference is they are in two completely different settings. All three, particularly Goldsworthy and Donovan, tend to create very labor-intensive and time-consuming pieces.

Tara Donovan

http://www.acegallery.net/artistmenu.php?Artist=8 This artist actually attended VCU's Sculpture and Extended Media department. She makes beautiful pieces using extremely everyday objects such as straws, toothpicks, cups, etc. Her work is very elegant and complex even though it is typically made only from one material.

Joseph Smolinski "Tree Turbine"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/libbyrosof/2755106652/ I discovered this artist's work at the lecture on Tuesday as well. What I love about this piece is its functionality. I like the idea of artists creating things with a specific and useful task. The idea behind the "Tree Turbine" is that it is a solution to the complaint the wind turbines are too ugly, so like the cell-phone tower tree, Smolinski designed a Tree Turbine.

Inigo Manglano-Ovalle "Gravity Is a Force To Be Reckoned With"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/unequaldesign/4179657613/ On Tuesday I went to a lecture in which this piece was discussed, and I found it to be incredibly interesting. Perhaps the most impressive part is Inigo's use of the negative space around the sculpture; the fact that it takes the viewer so long to reach the actual sculpture really builds the anticipation and curiosity about the world inside of it.

Bill Woodrow

http://www.billwoodrow.com/dev/profile.php This link is to Woodrow's Site. Here you can see many of his works.

http://www.billwoodrow.com/dev/sculpture_by_letter.php?page=2&i=10&sel_letter=c This link goes directly to one of his sculptures, Car Door, Armchair, and Incident. His work is made from everyday objects and he connects his pieces to the source of their material. For instance, this piece is made from a car door and contians the door from which he made it.