Melissa Cooke is a graduate from the University of Wisconsin in fine arts. She creates what can only be referred to as graphite paintings, as she states ” I create my work by applying thin layers of powdered graphite to paper with a dry brush. Illusion dissolves into brushwork and the honesty of the material.” The end result is a hyper realistic drawing, all of which tend to be around 50″ x 38″ in size. The effect is amazing. She has three series of works on her site, “You Know Me Better”, “Vacuum”, and “Masked”. There is also a couple of videos on the site that show her working process in a way.

See the rest of her work here: Melissacooke.com

Rory Kurtz is an artist working out of Chicago, Illinois. He is mainly self-taught and works with pencil, inks, and digital paint. He has also begun to add some paintings he is making out of acrylic paints to his blog. Wether it is digitally or traditionally, I think Rory has an amazing style and look forward to seeing more work. He had a piece in the “A Cry for Help” group exhibition at Thinkspace Gallery a while back, one that he also breaks down in his blog as well.

Check out his full gallery here: Rory Kurtz Illustration

A fine artist working out of New York, Jenny Morgan got her MFA at the School of Visual Arts NY. She primarily paints oils on canvas, and focuses on portrait work. The figures in the paintings are not only rendered with great skill, but you can see that each portrait has something uniquely altered. It might be a color that is invading a portion of the face or arms, or areas that look as though they have either been sanded down, or not rendered past the underpainting. It’s an amazing effect, and what I find most interesting is that her portraits are filled with emotion and life, and these alterations do not cover up, or take over the work. Jenny has a few paintings with no alterations done to them, and they are just as powerful as the others. About her work Jenny states: “I manipulate the figure to expose the individual’s idiosyncrasies and create a physiological portrait. Working with people from my own life as subject matter allows me to hone in on specifics of their character and present their personalities as I experience them.”

See more of Jenny Morgan’s work on her homepage: JennyMorganart.com
She also has a book available: New Territory by Jenny Morgan

I’ve talked about her work a little bit before, but thought it was time for a formal introduction. Tran Nguyen is an artist currently working on completing a BFA in Illustration at SCAD. She mainly works with light layers acrylic wash, some colored pencils added to the mix, all masterfully applied to a sheet of Rives BFK paper. If you have never felt Rives paper, it has this amazing texture to it and it perfect for an artist as talented as Tran. She recently had a sol show entitled “Nurturing The Uneased Soul” at the Thinkspace Gallery, and they even did an interview with her to go along with the show. Tran is definatley an artist to keep an eye on, so make sure after you are done looking at these images to head over to her blog and subscribe to her RSS if you like what you see.

Tran Nguyen Blog

Sam Wolfe Connelly is an artist out of Savannah, and went to the Savannah College of Art and Design. It looks like Sam works in all sorts of media, digital, watercolors, graphite, acrylics and more. His works are filled with animals, and often very surreal. Take a look at these select images and then head on over to his site for more.

Sam Wolfe Connelly Portfolio

An artist out of Berlin, Jurgen was trained at the Visual Arts at Fachhochschule Hannover and has had work in exhibitions in Germany, Russia and the United States. He works primarily in oils, and while he does create some single figure images, most of his work is this image collage layout. Figures that might be recognizable from movies such as Carrie, The Wolfman and even Hellboy, as well as figures that look plucked right out documentary photos or someones personal collection. Each one of the paintings forces you to question what the story is, what is going on in these images and how do the figure relate. I like the contrast that some of the paintings have with areas being highly rendered, while other areas look loosely sketched as seen in the third image.

Head on over and see the rest of his work: Jurgen Grewe Homepage

So far the Creep Machine has featured mainly contemporary art, but when I’m not looking for more current art to share I am researching classical art. Most of the work does not fit with the direction of the site, but some of it does, such as the work of Franz Xaver Messerschmidt a German-Austrian sculptor during the 18th century. He was once assistant professor of sculpture at the Imperial Academy of Vienna, but was passed over for the Chair of the department due to what they called “confusion in the head”, delusions and hallucinations. Due to what some believe to be Crohn’s disease, Messerschmidt alleviated the pain by punching himself. He then used himself as a template to create what he called the “canonical grimaces.” For the full story head on over to John Coulthart’s blog. I like how this classically trained artist created what most people would not consider classical art created hundreds of years ago.

Jason Asato is an artist/illustrator out of Hawaii. The majority of his works are digital paintings, but he has been adding some graphite drawings to is website that once filled his sketchbooks.I love the feel that the drawings have, especially the skull drawings. While most of these drawings occupy a small area of the paper, I really think his drawing style filling the majority of the paper would look amazing. Jason also added some of the drawings to his etsy page, all framed up and ready to sell.

For the rest of the drawings take a look here: Jason Asato Homepage

Kate MacDowell has not only traveled around the world for inspiration, but has also studied at a variety of institutions in Oregon and North Carolina. She states that her work is “in part responses to environmental stressors including climate change, toxic pollution, and gm crops.” Each piece is hand sculpted out of porcelain. Every little detail is made piece by piece and then added to the final form. The finished works are stunning. A few of the sculptures have been fitted to be lit from the inside. It looks great in the photos, but I am sure it is an exciting effect when seen up close.

Head on over and see the rest of her work: Kate MacDowell Portfolio

Doug Gordon is a Seattle based artist. He works in both digital as well as airbrushed paintings. His work is very colorful and surreal. His website shows some closeups of the paintings, showing how much control Doug has with the airbrush. I would love to see these paintings in person, they trul deserve to be seen up close.

Head on over and take a look at the rest of Doug’s work: Strangosity.com