Our response to paintings/drawings by Julie Mehretu, Trenton Doyle Hancock, and Marcel Dzama

Julie Mehretu
The center rectangle draws you into the center.
It looks like everything is getting pulled into the center.
It takes a long time to see the whole.
Did she start with a map?
It is Starwarsesk - it looks like a world exploding.
It is neutral. It does not evoke strong emotion (Van Eyck's Painting is also neutral)
I do not like the picture. It looks like puke, it makes me sick, and it looks like the colors in puke.
I like the bright colors that stand out, but everything is grayed down.
It is busy, like it is always moving.
It looks like a screen saver.


Trenton Doyle Hancock
Is that a squid in the forest?
The drawing looks overlapped.
There is a feeling of transparency.
The drawing keeps drawing you back.
You want to keep looking at the details.
There are different drawing styles in one drawing.
There are smooth lines and hatched lines.
The animals all appear to be possessed. They all have red eyeballs.
The drawing is random. It may have meaning, but it may not. It does not need to have meaning. If I knew what it means it would not necessarily make me like the drawing better.
I like that it is random and that we do not know what it means.



Marcel Dzama
The drawing is weird and subjective.
The woman does not have shoes on. (St Francis does not have shoes on in Van Eyck's painting)
He might be saying something with the red, because all the other colors are muted.
The drawing is bland, except for the red tomato heads.

(click on images to enlarge)