Judi Betts

Jill Taylor

Taylor was the costume designer for the movie "Penelope" staring Christina Ricci. I love the clothes in that movie, especially the wedding dress!!!

Alan Lee

Lee was one of the concept artists for the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy.  He has the most amazing tree paintings/drawings next to Arthur Rackham!

Yoshitaka Amano

Amano is an amazing Japanese artist.  He's done all sorts of stuff from illustration to gaming concept drawings.

James Jean

I had seen James Jean's illustrations on clothing and bags of one of Prada's spring collection. I was pleasantly surprised when Becca showed us his stuff in class. I have to include him in my contemporary artist 'data base' because his work is so cool!!!

Meeting Current Artists

VCU welcomes lots of visiting artists to come and give lectures on their art.  So far I've seen three artist.  First I saw Yuko Shimizu.  She's from Japan but has been working in America as an illustrator for ten years.  

These two pieces here are by Jules De Balincourt.  He was born in France but lived most of his life in America on the West Coast.  His work is very colorful, full of movement, and many landscapes, all with a political edge.  I saw Jules speak on October 9th.

The other artist I saw was Maya Hayuk.  She started out as a photographer but now does installation paintings all over.  She uses lots of geometric shapes and bright colors.

Dave McKean

Dave McKean is probably my favorite contemporary artist.  I discovered him accidentally; I was looking through a magazine that had a huge article/review on The Return of the King and at the very back of the magazine was a one page review for the movie Mirrormask.  The article and pictures on the movie completely intrigued me.  It wasn't until a year or two later that I found the DVD at Target and bought it.  That film blew me away!!!  Dave McKean designed and directed the film and Neil Gaiman wrote the screenplay.  I've been obsessed with both of McKean's and Gaiman's work ever since.