I woke up this morning with abstract art on my mind. After making dozens of inky abstract artworks last night and struggling to find the ‘feeling’ I see in the masters works over YEARS, I’m beginning to understand something about the nature and power of abstract art.
The truth is it really is not a genre that most can pull off with true satisfaction and success.
People who say “my three year old could do this’ are speaking the truth, they just don’t realise the deeper irony of what they are saying – they are implying that it is easy to imbue an artwork with presence, emotion and freedom. Well it IS for a three year old but it is the most challenging thing for an adult and then to have the courage to display it in a world that tends toward believing only what it sees with its two eyes.
As Picasso said “It took me four years to learn to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.”
Abstract mark making is about feeling and transferring that emotion, raw and bold and not always very comfortable, into the second dimension in order for others to get a taste of it.
When you do THAT when I can actually taste your anger lust fear love by looking at your art, I will celebrate that success with every cell in my body.
I want that in art, I guess it doesn’t mater if it is realism or abstract in the end… we just need to be able to FEEL it!!
circling the sun
