The purpose of the MacArthur Fellowships is to identify promising individuals and give them the freedom to achieve their personal vision without worrying about where their next paycheck is coming from. Two of the 24 winners this year are graphic artists: Mark Bradford, who works in multimedia collage, and Rackstraw Downes, who is known for his realistic paintings of urban landscapes.

What do we think? Were these good choices?

the first one i looked at abstract,collage (never understood abstract) to me its like someone cant draw, cant learn to draw, so they throw a bunch of lines together and someone made a category and call it 'abstract' very frustrating to me who struggles to learn all i can to draw something recognizable..

the other guy, actually draws/paints so i like him better, his oils look like photographs, wow.

I guess i cant answer fairly cause i dont care for the first..

I agree with Kay about the abstracts. I don't see any message or even beauty in Bradford's artworks. Downes' paintings are ultra-realistic. However, if it's going to be THAT precise, why not save a lot of trouble and take a good photo instead? I'm happy for them both, that's a lot of money to play with.

I actually like Mark Bradford's art-work. I can't say I understand abstractionism, but some abstractionists are able to evoke feelings in me with their art, the others are not (mostly not ).

I don't care much about realistic art. It seems so anonymous. But who am I to criticize.

But I don't understand how the MacArthur Fellowships choose artists. What are criterias? You can't say about artists that this one is better than the other one. Art is very subjective matter. Anyway, I'm glad for them because art is one of the hardest way to make living I suppose.

I use to feel the same about abstracts until I look up tutorials on the internet about abstracts. Now I have a better understanding about why, what and how they are made.

I think Rackstraw Downes deserves a fellowship just for having a name like Rackstraw Downes!

I have a little abstractionist at home myself. She's 4 years old and she has definitely her own vision about things around her. She draws blue carrots, dogs with 8 legs, pink snakes with big ear and sometimes she just creates textures and doesn't draw any particular objects. And she argues with teachers in play-school all the time because of that. But I like the colours she uses and feel joy about her sattisfaction she gets when she draw or paint.

Here is one of her masterpieces
Click to view attachment

By the way, this is our living-room door.

Sipsik, I think your little artist is actually very creative. I like the door.