Judy Pfaff | Childhood Love
When I was in high school, I remember thinking that if I ever became an awesome fine artist, I wanted to share similar rankings with Kara Walker, Kiki Smith, and Judy Pfaff (there's quite a few more, but they're listed in the top 10).

However, interestingly enough, I am 3-dimensionally-challenged—yet two out of my three fave inspirations are sculptresses. I think it's one of those things where people admire and love things that also double as a great weakness in their own skill set (e.g. loving fashion, but ignorant to actual construction).

But I'm also not a huge fan of 3-D works. Sometimes I don't understand it and call bullshit when I see it. So it's very rare for me to appreciate a grand installation or bust during occasional gallery visits. Obviously, Pfaff is part of a select few who won my heart. It must be love.

Pfaff's work is currently featured (through October 16) at Ameringer-Yohe gallery in NYC. Should be a doozy.

Julie Mehretu | Wall Art
"Julie Mehretu's biography reads a bit like an atlas. She was born in Ethiopia, raised in Michigan, educated in Senegal and Rhode Island, and now lives in New York ... her work incorporates the dynamic visual vocabulary of maps, urban-planning grids, and architectural forms as it alternates between historical narratives and fictional landscapes ... " (Excerpt via Walker Art Center)

I saw Mehretu's work for the first time at the ICA in Boston last month and it was love at first sight. My partner at Infashuated likened her work to Kandinsky (of course) and Alexander Calder's 3-D mobiles, which I considered to be a fresh, yet reasonable point of view when you think about the the two different media. However, it was the rich complexities of each piece and luscious layers that drew my attention to Mehretu's work the most.

There's never a place to rest your eyes—and the scale at which these are done is something else at which to marvel (Mehretu created a whole wall space at Goldman Sach's in NYC). The artist also plays with dimension through space, vertigo-inducing shapes, and too many lines to count—it's a kaleidoscopic, chaotic, beautiful mess.