Artists I'd like steal from:

Dana Schutz: Creative and humorous narratives, wide variety of concepts
Lucian Freud: Psychological impact of portraiture
Jenny Saville: Exaggerated perspective and proportions
Lisa Yuskavage: Droopy stylization of form, bright colors
Neal Adams: Fluid narrative compositions
N.C. Wyeth: Visual storytelling and dynamic compositions full of tension
Maxfield Parrish: Luminous colors and stunning depiction of light
Matt Rockefeller: Jumbled, interesting compositions with narrative detail
Guillermo Del Toro: Capturing a mood, making interesting and unsettling images

Dana Schutz is an American artist who merges organic and geometric in her colorfully abstracted paintings. Among other things, she loves to paint situations that might be considered awkward or embarrassing in real life. Her work dips into expressionism and realism, but bright colors and humorous subjects are constants in all her paintings.

Reformers, 2004

 I enjoy Schutz's paintings for their comedic absurdity, where crazy situations are compared to our normally unquestioned realities and entertaining works of fiction are easily related to our natural experiences. Dana expresses a lot of interesting concepts in her work like a race of self-cannibalizers or a situation in which she is stuck painting the last man on earth, and I think her paintings are best appreciated with these narratives in mind (although it should be said that the paintings are visually entertaining even without context, which isn't always common in abstract works). 

Face Eater, 2004

One of the best things about Dana's work is its fearlessness. She experiments with many subjects that I can tell she's very entertained by, and I don't feel she gets stuck on one idea or holds back on any creative impulses. 

"Usually before I start making a painting I’ll sketch or write lists of ideas for paintings that may or may not end up being made. Like: paint a stuffed-animal fight, or a time machine, or a boy with handmade features getting a haircut. That will get things going... When I am blocked I start drawing, writing, thinking about different ideas and reading. Sometimes I’ll respond to things that I’ve just made. I think it’s part of the process to get frustrated and then get a bunch of new ideas."

Simultaneously, I think that she paints for her audience's enjoyment. She even puts herself in the position of the audience and wonders when to incorporate herself in the fiction of the painting, as she does with her "Last Man on Earth" series. Ultimately there isn't anything too personal, abstract, or scholarly in her work to make it inaccessible to general audiences, and I believe this accessibility is something to be admired when a primary strength of art is its use as a communicative tool. Schutz is thus someone I can really admire for her empathy as well as her creativity.

Chris's Rubber Soul, 2001

Angela Dufresne is an American painter with a love for ambiguous narratives. Her smeared and blotchy brushwork creates a dream-like weirdness often shared by her subject matter. Some of Dufresne's works are so hilariously strange, it's exciting to think they've traveled to international exhibits.

 Dwarf, Goat, Woman, Man and Head, 2014

As a lesbian growing up in Kansas with her old-fashioned parents, Dufresne "reached the point of realizing that society had nothing to offer [her], and thus [she] had nothing to lose." She decided to pursue art-making as a way of communicating openly about her interests and freeing herself from the impending doom of a mute, servile female role. She recalls, "I wanted to be a storyteller, a punk, an image maker, and a feminist."

Reflecting her anti-establishment personality, Dufresne enjoys sidestepping exact ideals and pretty perceptions in her work, the kind that narrative media often attempts to provoke from its audience. 

She chooses to make emotional rather than researched responses to "revered" images from film and art history, so the result is more abstract and personal than an all-encompassing narrative ready-made for its audience's digestion. 

Mommy Dearest, 2014

I'm really fond of seeing artists who don't put their subject matter on a pedestal to the point of being too stuffy, serious, or fussy with it, and I suppose this is a big part of my attraction to Dufrensne's work; the variety she has in her paintings conveys her interest in experimentation over perfection. I'm entertained by the surprises I find in some of her weirder paintings (men with erections hugging foals), and I can also just appreciate the beauty of her luminescent colors and  lively compositions.

Death of Silence, 2013

I also enjoy her mixing of techniques used to show depth (atmospheric perspective, contrasting values) with intentionally keeping other parts of her work flat (with colors saturated where they should recede and very samey values). This creates an inconsistent space that confuses the eye a bit, adding to the otherworldly appearance of her settings. 

Battle Royale on Ice, 2012

Most of all, I can relate to how Dufresne tends to imply stories with still portraiture rather than showing the actual action taking place. This character-centric interest is present in what I believe are her stronger works.

Girl and Salmon, 2014