So I was about to go to bed and there was an email there from a friend:
Dear (everyone)
I’m teaching at the painting department of (blank) college of Art and I would like to give my students a reference list of great contemporary national/international painters. I realized they know modern and older historic painters but have no clue about what’s going on today.
Please send me your top 5 list and a very short/brief explanation why. I will not give out your names, this is merely (blah blah blah opportunity blah blah blah broaden perspective blah blah blah)
So after a full day and without thinking I whipped this out, if I did it at another time tomorrow it would be a different list, etc
DUDE:
you can give out my name, i am not a pussy about how i feel.
TOP PAINTERS ALIVE TODAY:
KIM DINGLE
Her American feminist painting thickly renders girls as aggressors and heroes.
ROBERT WILLIAMS
The founder of Juxtapoze magazine singlehandedly elevated comics to high art.
GRONK
His Chicano romantic expressionism in the 80s has evolved into a post-graffiti abstraction.
LLYN FOULKES
At 74 his painting is still critiquing the unfairness of life with an inventive genius.
CECILLY BROWN
She is the only real painter of importance that Gagosian represents.
And if you are reading this, of course you are #6