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