Muntean and Rosenblum

Muntean and Rosenblum create large-scale paintings of adolescent figures, often set in urban landscapes. The paintings are almost cartoon-like and show contemporary society. The individuals in the images look young and trendy; casual, but also slightly bored and disengaged. Although their clothing and fashion sense is what places these paintings into modern day, the actual painting style seems to reference the Renaissance; as they sometimes have dramatic landscapes and have an almost theatrical composition of people. Beneath the imagery is text, almost like comic-book style captions but it is far less explanatory and more philosophical than comic book text. The text could be a commentary on modern society but only if we want to make that link; as the phrases could be interpreted in different ways by different viewers.

In my own work I am interested in depicting the generation of the urban youth, similar to Muntean and Rosenblum. I find their work interesting because of how nonchalant the adolescents look; pictured casually doing everyday things. I like this idea of the subject matter being current or everyday life; - I'm not interested in creating drama or depicting particularly unusual scenes. I like the idea of capturing a sector of society, or creating a picture or mirror of society, not with commentary or judgement; just to show today's times. Muntean and Rosenblum also focus on urban settings which I'm also interested in. I live in the city so it's easy to draw inspiration from that, and it's where a denser population are. I'm not particularly interested in the classical style painting of Muntean and Rosenblum's work, but I am interested in the content. I might try and add more painting into my work in the future though, as feedback seems to be that people find most of my work to have a painterly quality.