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Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

CONTEMPORARY STYLE

Used to refer to a time rather than an aesthetic, Contemporary art generally describes pieces created after 1970 or being made by living artists anywhere in the world. This immediacy means it encompasses art responding to the present moment through diverse subjects, media and themes. Contemporary painting, sculpture, photography, performance, digital art, video and more frequently includes work that is attempting to reshape current ideas about what art can be, from Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s use of candy to memorialize a lover he lost to AIDS-related complications to Jenny Holzer’s ongoing “Truisms,” a Conceptual series that sees provocative messages printed on billboards, T-shirts, benches and other public places that exist outside of formal exhibitions and the conventional “white cube” of galleries.

Contemporary art has been pushing the boundaries of creative expression for years. Its disruption of the traditional concepts of art are often aiming to engage viewers in complex questions about identity, society and culture. In the latter part of the 20th century, contemporary movements included Land art, in which artists like Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer create large-scale, site-specific sculptures, installations and other works in soil and bodies of water; Sound art, with artists such as Christian Marclay and Susan Philipsz centering art on sonic experiences; and New Media art, in which mass media and digital culture inform the work of artists such as Nam June Paik and Rafaël Rozendaal.

The first decades of the 21st century have seen the growth of Contemporary African art, the revival of figurative painting, the emergence of street art and the rise of NFTs, unique digital artworks that are powered by blockchain technology.

Major Contemporary artists practicing now include Ai Weiwei, Cecily Brown, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami and Kara Walker.

Find a collection of Contemporary prints, photography, paintings, sculptures and other art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Contemporary
Color:  Silver
Feather Group Four, Silverpoint Drawing, Bird's Feathers, Soft Gray on White
Located in Kent, CT
This delicate drawing is made with silverpoint on prepared archival board. The exploration of ephemerality, and the fragility of nature, its textures and movement, is the focus of this work by Margot Glass. The exquisite beauty of a group of simple feathers, often overlooked or considered mundane, is discovered and elevated through close examination and exquisite drawing by the artist. Signed and titled on verso and initialed on recto, lower right corner. Framed in a silver frame, 10 x 8 inches (unframed), 12 x 10 inches (framed). Glass draws with pure silver not only for the delicacy of line the metal point provides, but also for the allure of using a semiprecious metal as a drawing material. Working on an archival board allows the gleam and luster and delicate reflective silver properties of the metallic medium to present as soft and textured against the ground. The surface is primed with traditional silverpoint ground. The silverpoint ground is slightly chalky when dry to provide a subtle toothy surface to grab the silver particles. Glass is interested in the tradition of using nature as idealized ornament in art and design while seeking to carefully observe as accurately as possible in all the irregularity and imperfection. The metallic lines enhance the decorative qualities of the filigree patterns formed by the minute details in each object. Her compositions are tightly cropped to bring the subject as close to the edge of the picture plane as possible. Margot Glass’s work been exhibited widely in the United States and internationally. Glass’s education includes studies in the Brown/RISD Exchange Program, Brown University...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver

Shire (2022), surreal abstract dream-like landscape, blue, silver, pink, black
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Shire (2022), surreal abstract dream-like landscape, blue, silver, pink, black "Shire" by Shamona Stokes portrays a dreamy, inviting, surreal landscap...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver, Foil

Lightning My Load (2020), surreal abstract dream-like landscape, skyscape, blue
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Lightning My Load (2020), surreal abstract dream-like landscape, sky, skyscape, blue and orange "Lightning My Load" by Shamona Stokes portrays a dream...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver

Untitled II
Located in Bloomington, IL
Jonathan Higgins' contemporary metalpoint drawing on tinted acrylic ground on wood panel was executed in silver and copper. Metalpoint is a Renaissance drawing technique that was use...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver, Copper

Untitled VIII
Located in Bloomington, IL
This piece by Jonathan Higgins is a contemporary metalpoint drawing on white acrylic ground on paper. The drawing was made using silver, copper, graphite and sanding. The artist's si...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver, Copper

Untitled I
Located in Bloomington, IL
Jonathan Higgins' contemporary metalpoint drawing on tinted acrylic ground on wood panel was executed in silver and copper. Metalpoint is a Renaissance drawing technique that was use...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver, Copper

Cherry / Silver / Lace
Located in New Orleans, LA
artwork dimensions (unframed): 20h x 14w inches LAURA TANNER GRAHAM’s drawings and installations are often discussed as part of the Southern Gothic literary tradition, sharing similar themes with authors such as Flannery O’Connor and Eudora Welty. As a Georgia native, Graham’s work seeks to understand the ways in which pattern and printed textiles are informed by social and political movements. Her narratives are tightly bound to antebellum traditions while balancing the changing ideals of the new generation of southern society. Graham received her MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a BFA from Florida State University. She has exhibited nationally in both group and solo exhibitions including the Weatherspoon Art Museum, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the Athens Institute of Contemporary Art. She has also been a visiting artist at Tulane University and Valdosta State University. In 2016, Graham was awarded a fellowship and residency at the Ucross Foundation and the Vermont Studio Center. Graham is currently living and making work in Tucson, AZ. STATEMENT Firmly grounded in America’s expansive colonial history, my work interrogates how Southern culture has been idealized as “quintessential America” and the bedrock of traditional American values. Using my familiarity and position within Southern culture, I have created a new visual literacy to demonstrate how America’s nostalgia for tradition has been manipulated in an effort to isolate and disenfranchise. My drawings act as a visual archive of research that examines the consequences of American colonialism and addresses the sense of white fragility that continues to pervade Western culture. In the midst of widespread anxiety over the collective American identity, there has been a revival of many of the country’s unresolved historical battles, including contentious race relations, sexism, nativism, and an ever-growing wage gap. I employ the Americana aesthetic of the old South to parallel historical and contemporary acts of resistance to racial, economic, and gender diversity. Borrowing directly from the decorative arts, the meticulously hand-cut mylar and equally intricate drawing capitalizes on America’s propensity for nostalgia to lure the viewer into confronting injustices through the detached lens of that which has already happened. Through a combination of appropriated and invented imagery, my work contextually constructs contemporary accounts of systemic marginalization, executed under the guise of leisure, embellishment and luxury. The dense visual language invites investigation into the textured surfaces and leads the viewer to reflect on the social textures of contemporary culture while questioning their own complicity in current social constructs. Sourcing from period- specific textiles, turn-of-the-century advertisements, campaign posters, and found family photographs, the collaged images create a singular narrative composition that document the cyclical and systemic nature of marginalization in America. The methodology with which the drawings are constructed echoes historical layers of rules, regulations and hierarchies that are stitched into dominant white American myths. The resulting drawings are indexical in nature, recording the parallels between topics of current debate and 18th century Western expansionism. The disconnect between the delicate nature of the work and the unresolved cultural tensions that it reveals provides a visual record of the inconsistencies of American idealism. My current project explores the South as the embodiment of America’s pastoral traditions and values that are at the center of the “Make America Great Again” movement, a movement which has both exploited and is at odds with a social ideal that simultaneously proclaims itself to be “post- racial” and “post- gender” while identifying with a “pull-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps” mentality. As one of the earliest colonized areas, the South is often portrayed as a region of racial and gender stability in the face of impending change. I am currently working with research institutions in the South to further understand how the architectural structure of the Southern plantation...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Mylar, Ink

"American Bald Eagle Flying Through Silver Clouds Between..." by David Barnett
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"American Bald Eagle Flying Through Silver Clouds Between Heaven and Earth" is an original mixed media piece by David Barnett, signed on the lower left center. It incorporates watercolor, ink, iridescent acrylic, rubber stamps, collage, and oil pencil. This piece depicts a surrealist landscape. A cow with an cowl perched on its back stands in the lower left corner, and tracks lead away from it across the bottom of the picture. A small turtle approaches a pond in the lower right. In the center register of the image, two leaves have been collaged into an abstractly-drawn forest. The eagle of the title is shown in several stages of its flight through the blue and yellow sky. Art size: 7 15/16" x 9 1/2" Frame size: 15 1/4" x 16 1/8" David Barnett, an artist, collector, appraiser and gallerist has been passionate about art from the early age of five. David’s career as an art dealer began at age nineteen when, as a fine arts student, he sponsored an exhibition of work by fellow student artists. In 1966, he opened his first gallery in a converted basement apartment at Wisconsin Avenue and 21st Street. In 1985 David moved his gallery from Wisconsin Avenue into the Old Button Mansion on State Street and has been active ever since. David’s talents for recognizing undervalued artists and for meeting the needs of art lovers, art collectors and artists have created a vibrant, flourishing gallery and collection of over 6,000 works of art. David was born and raised in Wisconsin. He has been painting in watercolors, acrylics, oil pastels as well as fine art photography. David has more than 10 different series he has developed over the years. They include Abstract, Surrealism, Morph Dog, Up North Birch Bark, Impressions of Mexico City, Southwest, Fireworks, Famous Artist Paying Homage and Garden Panorama. Influential artists include Vermeer, Miro, Kandinsky, Chagall, Nolde and Klee. David has been featured in many magazines, newspapers and public television programs regarding his beautiful gallery, collection and knowledge and passion of fine art. David also has work in the permanent collection Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona. In November 2005, he opened his second studio gallery in Hartland, Wisconsin. Exhibits “Morph Dog Series”, David Barnett Gallery, 1996 “Renewal", Art Escape Gallery, Thiensville, WI, 2003 “Recent Watercolors", David Barnett Gallery, 2003, Lora D. Art Gallery, Chicago, IL, 2004 “Group Show”, Broden Gallery Ltd., Madison, WI, May-June 2004 "Homage to Kandinsky", David Barnett Gallery, Milwaukee, WI 2014 Collections Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ Private collections throughout the United States and around the world including collections in Wisconsin, Maryland, New York, Washington D.C., Arizona, Illinois, Florida, Kentucky. International collections in Brazil, Singapore and Hong Kong. Articles Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Barnett Gives His Work an Exhibit" by James Auer, November 1996 Exclusively Yours...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Oil Crayon, Ink, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Watercolor, Other Medium

Untitled
Located in New York, NY
Untitled, 2018 Silver ink on paper, collage unframed 15.35h x 15.75w in Miriam Peralta was born in 1957 in Buenos Aires, where she also received her formal academic training at th...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver

Otra vuelta por el universo
Located in New York, NY
Otra vuelta por el universo, 2018 Silver ink on paper and magnets unframed 17.72h x 16.14w in Miriam Peralta was born in 1957 in Buenos Aires, where she also received her formal a...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver

Sur-Norte
Located in New York, NY
Sur-Norte, 2018 Silver ink on paper, collage unframed 12.60h x 14.17w in Miriam Peralta was born in 1957 in Buenos Aires, where she also received her formal academic training at t...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver

Una vuelta por el universo
Located in New York, NY
Una vuelta por el universo, 2018 Silver ink on paper 44.49h x 20.28w in Miriam Peralta was born in 1957 in Buenos Aires, where she also received her formal academic training at th...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Silver

The Silver Salon
Located in New Orleans, LA
Nurhan Gokturk is an artist and urban designer. Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Gokturk immigrated to New York City at the age of three. Raised in Queens and Brooklyn and educated in the p...
Category

2010s Contemporary Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Lithograph

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Previously Available Items
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Downy Feather, Small Silverpoint Drawing of Bird's Feather in Soft Gray on White
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Contemporary drawings and watercolor paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Contemporary drawings and watercolor paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add drawings and watercolor paintings created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, orange, purple, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Leo Guida, Reginald K. Gee, David Barnett, and Luis Miguel Valdes . Frequently made by artists working with Paper, and Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Contemporary drawings and watercolor paintings, so small editions measuring 0.79 inches across are also available. Prices for drawings and watercolor paintings made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $60 and tops out at $295,000, while the average work sells for $1,201.

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