Image via Complex Original
With the fashion and art worlds more entwined than ever, artists seem as well-versed in Tom Ford versus Armani as they do in Sennelier versus Gamblin. But as with any other visually-inclined person (or any human being, really), artists use their sense of style for different means: some use clothing as an extension of their vision, others use it detract attention from themselves and deflect it onto their work, and still others use it as a canvas.
Below, we round up 15 of the most well-dressed artists in the game right now. Some are quirkily attired rookies, others are far-out masters, and more than a few have expansive collections of really rad glasses.
Korakrit Arunanondchai
The self-proclaimed “denim painter,” Arunanondchai creates acid wash canvases and jean-themed video installations (like 2013’s Painting with History in a room filled with men with funny names). His uniform of a paint-splattered, bare chest and jeans seems pulled from the classic mid-century machismo painter lookbook, but his work, which deals with the ways Thailand has appropriated western fashion and pop culture, adds a deeper meaning to his look. Is he painting over the denim to transform it, or is he a cowboy who slings paint instead of pistols?
John Baldessari
The man who put dots on everyone’s face also has a deceptively simplistic sense of style. Somehow, his all black attire isn’t boring, but it's unassumingly arresting. His white hair and beard frame a face that seems to be a portrait of a wizened sage—Rembrandt, reimagined in Los Angeles, and without the weird millinery fetish. He also raises the question: is height an accessory?
Scott Campbell
It’s gotta speak to your aesthetic chops when the most talented designers from the art and fashion world think of just one name—Scott Campbell—when they’re looking to get inked up. And a body of stunning tattoos has got to make it pretty easy to get dressed: throw on jeans, then let that work shirt fly free and unbuttoned. Even when he’s more covered up on the red carpet with babely wife Lake Bell, you still visualize those tattoos underneath, like Superman’s heroic costume lying in wait beneath that gray flannel suit.
Michel Gaubert
While most people who celebrate for their Instagram prowess (Jesus, the age we live in) are simply taking those dinner pics and pretty landscapes at a much higher quality than other mortals, DJ Michel Gaubert has turned the medium upside-down by creating a Tumblrama of weird chic. His combination of odd archival images and loony fashion photos accompany comments that have the oddball dryness of the best ad slogans. That’s the same ‘tude that seems to underline his style, which is jarring in its unerring simplicity: the classic Parisian black and scarf, punctuated with a stoic mug and aviator shades.
Jasper Johns
That mid-century machismo look Korakrit Arunanondchai plays on? Jasper Johns helped invent it: button-downs, T-shirts, sorta tidy hair, and a piercing look. He does Americana so well, you’d think Ralph Lauren's playbook is based on Johns. And maybe it is; after all, the two share a muse.
Terence Koh
Terence Koh has delighted and spooked us with the endless variety of ways to wear all white, appearing like a ghost who's just visiting. Sometimes it’s a mohair sweater that seems to glow like white plasma filaments. Other times, he’s dressed as a bride, but he appears stark, antiseptic, impenetrable, and untouched. Perhaps more than any other artist working over the past decade, his style adds meaning to his work.
Jeff Koons
His goody-two-shoes grin looks more like it belongs on a realtor’s business card than on the cover of ARTnews, and for that matter, his pin-neat attire often does, too (Koons is a noted germophobe). But his pinstripes and cufflinks and rich Brooklyn dad get-ups are a reflection of his appeal: it may be exorbitantly costly, but it’s as mass market as they come.
Ryan McGinley
Ryan McGinley’s nudes read like an energetic foil to Larry Clark’s photographs, and his sense of style shows he’s keen to mesh with the skateboarders, artists, and musicians he frequently captures. He’s often in blue T-shirts, baggy jeans, and bomber jackets, but his surprising collection of groovy three-piece-suits belie the fact that he’s just a guy getting dressed.
Oscar Murillo
Of course the it-est it-artist in town turns it out. You have to look good when you’re constantly getting compared to Basquiat, right? Oscar Murillo has an enviable collection of far-out, hyper-vivid prints, which he tosses over otherwise totally pared down outfits. He’s yet to splatter an Armani suit in paint, but we imagine his day will come.
Rashaad Newsome
The guy who arted-up voguing has an ultra-fresh sense of color, as demonstrated by a shirt collection that comes in shades as wild and cool as a nail polish collection. Think the dopest fuschias, the most royal blues, and gingham that feels anything but all-American.
Hunt Slonem
The painter who ladled a fauvist-meets-Southern Gothic sensibility into contemporary expressionism has an equally dexterous handle on color in his sartorial dealings. He’s worn every color in the punch bowl and always has the right glasses to match.
James Turrell
Real talk: the hottest beard in the game right now. The guy who made you wonder if you actually see hot pink right before you die uses navy and black as his vestimentary workhorses, which keeps your eyes on his work (and, yeah, that beard). But he’s smart to save the color for his work.
Dustin Yellin
We’ve spent so much time wondering whether Yellin tenderly wraps his red locks in curlers every night that we didn’t realize his wardrobe game was so strong. But it is! He dresses for a gallery opening the way every artist probably dreams about: dressed up, sure, but the shirt’s unbuttoned, the tie is a little loose, and he isn’t afraid to throw a sweatshirt underneath.
Jordan Wolfson
A freaky sexbot robowitch may be what you see when you close your eyes and say “Jordan Wolfson.” Or at least that's the kind of work he brought to David Zwirner Gallery last year. His style is a little less bonkers—think a kind of ritzed-up version of the Brooklyn Guy standard, with a flop of pompadour as a halo—but maybe that makes it a bit more…um, relatable?
Jamie Wyeth
The last great realist king seems to live entirely on his own magical agrarian planet, where much of the populace still lives in farmhouses and wrinkles are earned. His incredible wardrobe includes a variety of plus-fours and billowing, romantic blouses, which pretty much suggests his biopic may be the Oscar bait Hugh Grant has been waiting for.