Work of Art - Premiere

Network: BRAVO
Series: Work of Art
Episode: Season 1, Episode 1



"Art is a way to show the outside world what your inside world is like." Jerry Saltz

This is the show of my dreams. I used to watch Top Chef and Project Runway and wish they would do a competition show with fine artists. Luckily, Sarah Jessica Parker and some geniuses at BRAVO had the same idea and it's finally here. I'm going to start by listing the 14 artists and my first impressions of them, and a brief review of their portfolio on the Bravo website, if they have one.

Full disclosure: I'm a painter, not a good one, but I'm learning. I flatter myself by saying I'm an art student. I like juicy color, strong design, and I don't like ugliness in art. Sorry - I know that's heresy these days, but if you aren't going to make the world better, you're wasting art supplies, IMO.


The contestants are:

Abdi - a cute kid with a good sense of humor;  talented painter with his own style, but it's not my taste.
Amanda - takes herself very seriously, probably because she's had to; abstract, conceptual, nothing stands out but she sees it as telling a story.
Erik - film maker; some strong use of color but his imagery is horror-movie stuff
Jaclyn - the hot girl with real experience; strong female imagery juxtaposed with elements of masculine society. Strong painting skills.
Jaime Lynn - a fluffy Christian chick;  I didn't want to like her stuff, but I do. Great use of color and unusual religious imagery, but there's a little tacky edge on things that is far too familiar. She's not afraid to use "crafty" items like glitter or lace and that's going to work against her, I think.
John - didn't make much of an impression; has a common theme that runs through his work, but I don't like that theme. My gut reaction to almost every piece was "eww."
Judith - the eldest; strong design, would have guessed her age from her art because it's first wave feminist inspired - example: her best known works play on the word "pussy" and images of kittens.
Mark - a fry cook/photographer who doesn't take himself too seriously; concept photography with a sense of humor, plays with stereotypes, makes liberal use of Photoshop.
Miles - has OCD, does silk screening, didn't have a portfolio on line, but his work on the show is solid.
Nao - a performance artist, she's a trip, but it might be down a long flight of stairs. No online portfolio, but they showed a piece where she had her head in a plastic bag of water and cut it open.
Nicole - the pretty hippy chick, says she has a strong design influence; a mixed bag of gimicky and modern pieces and one really good Picasso-esque acrylic and india ink painting.
Peregrine - is already in the Whitney Museum of art, work is both vulgar and cutesy, features female nudes, and little animals with incongruent text.
Ryan - the heart throb; technically great paintings of people I don't want to look at.
Trong - well-known curator; High concept, cerebral installation pieces and traditional paintings

China Chow is the hostess  - a striking art collector who knew Warhol and Basquiat. World-renowned art auctioneer Simon de Pury is her Tim Gunn, and I think I'm going to like him just as much.

For the first challenge, their self-portraits are randomly paired and they each have to produce a portrait of the other artist. They had 30 minutes to get to know each other, then maybe 8 hours to do their work. Miles is obsessed with setting up his dark room, so Nao doesn't get to know much about him. At 5 minutes to midnight, he blows the bulb he needs to expose the image and he goes to bed in an OCD panic. I feel for the kid.

They're all living together in a fabulous place. The film-maker, Erik, says he's been living in cars and on couches so this will be quite a step up for him. He's feeling a little out of his depth because his focus is not creating paintings, but he did have a portfolio of them that showed he can draw when he wants to.

Ryan is disappointed with his portrait of Abdi because it's small and very literal, almost photo real. Peregrine thinks she's got a strong nude portrait of Nicole, and I agree, but she doesn't make the finalists. Nicole's portrait of Peregrine is bright and striking, and I'm surprised it didn't get more attention.

The three most successful:

Abdi - did an amazing painting of Ryan. He had a good subject, but it's bold and modern, or in the words of "" it's "contemporary" and "nasty."
Miles - did a death portrait of Nao that they loved.
Mark - did a strong picture of Erik that he Photoshopped for emphasis.

The three least successful:

Erik -  painted Mark as a clown, and it's not very good. He says he doesn't have a lot of art experience and the judges think that's an excuse.
Amanda - did an abstract in Jaime Lynn's palette that they thought looked like wallpaper instead of a portrait. Ouch.
Nao did a very abstract image of lines and dots to represent Miles zipping around the studio.

Miles wins, as I expected. Amanda gets sent home, which blew me away. I would have picked either Nao or Erik, Nao was particularly defensive, saying "i'm not responsible for your experience of my work," and I would have sent her home just for that, but they picked Amanda for some strange reason.

My prediction for the top 3:  Abdi, because he's good, Miles because he's very detailed and came through in a crisis, and Trong, because he's well known. Who do you like?

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