Andy Warhol Exhibition at Met

Andy Warhol is well known artist in Pop art. He expressed his creativeness through film, pictures, and paintings. To be honest, I am not a great fan of his works especially his films and pictures because it just looks awkward to me and meaningless. But he has great taste in colors and he uses it very well. His painting method is very simple. He cuts out picture from the newpaper, enlarge it and print it on the silk screen and paint them in various colors.

It looks very simple but people worship his paintings.

He loved to use Marylin Monroe, Mao, Jackie for his silk screen work.

It is as if he wanted to use their popularity to draw people’s attention. Or maybe Andy Warhol really did worship them and think of them as the King or Queen of their fields. By using dynamic colors, Andy Warhol somehow brings out the feeling of the characters. With Marylin Monroe’s headshot, he tried on bold, sexy color to represent her sex appeal, and at the same time he used very dull blue to show her inside. When he painted the Mao, President of China, he used colors like yellow, green, and blue which are used often in Asia. He used Elizabeth Taylor’s picture also. And he used soft green on her portrait.

When we first see Warhol’s painting, we know that it is his painting right away because his dynamic colors. But also, we look at it more carefully because we know the person on the paining and that makes it more interesting.

We can not tell much from the portraits because there is no background or torso of the model. All we know is their face, name, and the painter. Maybe that is why Warhol used only the headshot of the famous people, who is considered as king or queen in their field.