Top 6 Still Life Artists A Detailed Guide

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The way we dress up, the things we own, and the furniture of our rooms and homes indicate our personality, who we are, and our values, basically our origin. Likewise, artists who make still life artists produce suggestive worlds, put hidden clues about their barren lives and emotions and sometimes introduce fantasy characters into their mind-blowing compositions.
Still, life art is a genre that gained recognition in Western Art by the 16th century; Dutch artists made contemporary still-life painting a genuine art form, and the French painters from the 19th century started the impressionist movement. Since then, it has become an important genre of art. It has been categorized by portraying everyday objects that could be man-made, like vases, musical instruments, or maybe natural, like fruits, flowers, etc., or in simple words depicting anything immovable. It is also known as Nature Morte. 

There are many misconceptions about still life’s presence in the art world, but to be honest, it is still alive and demanding as it was before. Thanks to Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring, and Judy Chicago who brought back still life art. However, this genre is mainly considered the lowest after portrait, landscape, history, and everyday life painting.

Here is the list of the top 6 contemporary still life artists who contributed to classic still life art history and amazed people with their art compositions.

Hilary Pecis:

She lives and works in Los Angeles. Her lively and vibrant still lives are filled with historical references to art. Her striking compositions include Henry Taylor, Eva Hesse, Lari Pittman, Francis Bacon, and many more. Her figurative and abstract canvases hang all over her interior. 

IMG source: ArtNet

Pecis even composed a poster for a Joan Mitchell exhibition in Camellias 2018. The still life gives Pecis the opportunity to make references to artists, both alive and deceased, who are working (or have worked) in quite diverse modes. Pecis is going to exhibit her still lives and landscapes at Spurs Gallery, a solo show in Beijing. 

Holly Coulis:

She lives and works in Georgia. For her, the still life genre is intimate and personal. Being a  contemporary still life painter, her masterpieces portray the most complex and ultimate human desires to depict our fellow beings. She made up a collection of characters carries her restless imagination and wish to relate and connect with those fictional people. 

Holly Coulis:
Image Source: Artist gallery

Coulis represent human as juvenile self-assured creature with the potential to have distinct personalities and backstories. Coulis delightfully inserts her figures within portraiture history, where they beautifully enrich the ways of tradition. Also, the artist outlines her forms multiple times in unique, bold colors and gives vibrant, radiant impressions. 

Anna Valdez:

This still life contemporary artist lives and works in Oakland. Anna is a multi-disciplinary artist who focuses on the link between cultural formation, objects, and collective consciousness. She moves flawlessly between landscape painting and still life. She picks objects and makes new ones with cultivation, observation, and fictionalization. 

Anna Valdez

Moreover, she draws and paints floors and tables covered with art books, plants, conch shells, cow skulls, and embellished vases. She took inspiration from Dutch Vanita’s traditional paintings from the 17th century, and those paintings mainly symbolize the artist’s death or mortality that reflects the temporary world.

Daniel Gordon:

He lives and works in New York, “Delirious” and “Meticulous” are two apt words that have been enough to illustrate Daniel’s work. While photography was his passion, he gradually entered still life art. He takes photos from the internet, i.e., vases, pitchers, flowers, etc., gathers them in his studio, arranges 3D compositions, and then snaps the final masterpiece.

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 The end frames are complex, vivid, serene, and vibrant. If you look at the final picture: you will need clarification on the real and digital ones. He often says his genre has a touch of still life, landscape, and portraiture. During the lockdown, he composed small still lives that incorporate everyday household items. He named these art pieces “Night Picture.” Because he made them in the evenings.

Guy Yanai:

Israeli artist Guy Yanai lives and works in Tel Aviv. His paintings depict bold hues, shallow depth of field, and basic shapes. He believes that humans have primal attractions toward the objects around us, and after painting them, these objects eventually tell our hidden stories. For his inspiration, he often takes everyday items as his subjects and makes them look unbiased and distant by flattening and abstracting. Moreover, he has acknowledged old, modern, and contemporary masters, TV, ads, paintings, and pictures for his inspiration. 

Guy Yanai

His domestic scenes include windows reflecting other homes, twiggy plants in boxy pots, and blue and pink painted walls. His streamlined depictions may be a trick to arranging a wide range of information about objects, humans, and location into something brief representation of his snug composition. During the pandemic pause, he was getting significant attention from the art world. 

Maria Nepomuceno:

Maria Nepomuceno lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. The very first impression of her knitted, sculptural shows floral still lives, but in-depth examination reveals her organic natural forms, showing organs, veins, arteries, and other internal mechanisms of the human body.

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Along with launching a wearable art project with London’s Elisabetta Cipriani Gallery, Maria is also interested in a site-specific piece at Manchester’s Portico Library. Whether it is wearable or not, all of her work exudes sincerity and a passion for the arts. 

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