Abstract painting explained – Part 12

To create his abstract masterpieces, Jackson Pollack put a large canvas on the floor and splashed buckets of wet paint on it. Andy Warhol traced photos of soup cans and celebrities, then reduced the images to flat patterns, slightly separated (out of register) the images in different colors and printed many copies of each of them by silk screen process. Roy Lichtenstein projected images of comic strip characters on a large, wall-mounted canvas. He then traced them exactly, including the type “balloons” of the characters speaking, and filled in the colored areas with dot patterns.

Their resulting abstract “paintings” now hang in major museums, and also sell for multimillions to private collectors. The so-called skill or supposed talent of producing such masterpieces is in no way comparable to the traditional, realistic paintings of Rembrandt, Rafael, Da Vinci, Ingres, David or Vermeer. The artists who create abstract paintings, while often clever marketers, substitute skill and beauty with outrageousness, anger, political agendas and just plain flim-flam.

Why is abstract art so popular and lucrative if the artist is lucky enough and lives long enough to cash in on them? And why does some of its worst examples command enormous sums of money? I believe the entire business is trumped up by the mentality of the puffed-up marketing hype we see today in sports and entertainment. The same too-wealthy people who are willing to spend several thousand bucks for two hours to be seen sitting in a ringside seat, don’t question the multi-million-dollar price on a distorted piece of show-off art peddled by a rip-off marketer.

The same questions may be asked of rap stars who make millions by chanting ungrammatical curses to an annoying drum beat that have no relationship to music. Why does a movie star with very limited talent except to look sexy with Botox and bosom enhancement command millions of dollars to feign acting for several hours a day over a six-week schedule? Why do seven-foot athletes get millions for standing on tippy-toes and shoving a ball into a basket? And why does a steriod-inflated baseball player sign a ten-year contract at ten million a year because his enhanced muscles and bat can hit a ball 400 feet? By comparison to those examples of abstract skills, the artistic rip-off talent exhibited by oil company executives to earn them their millions seems almost fair.

I know I sound like an angry old man, which is perfectly true, but many

Understanding abstract art – Part 6

Abstract art, like any art, should not be “explained” as a how-to. Appreciating art is as far from a skill or craft as you can get. Each person has the ability to understand a work of art- even if their only understanding is whether they like to look at it or not.

People I have met who have not studied art at all often tell me they don’t know when I ask them what they think of an artwork. I tell them that it’s okay to not like it, even if they don’t know why. Visual imagery is a very powerful tool in our moods and our daily lives. Even simple colors effect how we feel without our knowing it. Think of advertising, where fast music and bright colors make you feel energetic. Dark images and slow music lend to mystery or solemn memories. Images and colors are understood on a basic instinctual level. An abstract level, you might say.

I am an artist, and I generally paint abstract paintings. I also enjoy some combination between abstract and figurative- basically people/ figures, and shapes and colors all mixed in together. I think abstract art is powerful because it can convey thoughts and feelings, ideas, evoke emotions. Anyone who has ever seen a picture of something and done a double-take, or stopped, or gone back and stood in front of it for even a few seconds, has appreciated art. If an image is powerful enough to get and hold your attention, it has done its job. The reason that Abstract Art can have a little more power is that it is not an attempt to “feed” you an idea through a recognizable common image. Abstract art gives you, the viewer, control over what you make of it.

When I paint using many bright colors and shapes and movement, I am painting my feelings at that time. I am painting the way I am seeing the world at that moment. When you walk over and look at that painting, you automatically project your current emotion, thought, feeling onto mine. You will react based on your own personal perspective. If you show twenty people a picture of a horse, they’ll all “see” a horse. If you put an abstract image up, you will likely get twenty different responses according to what they drew form the image. I refer you to the Rorschach Inkblot tests. It’s all relative.

I think that, essentially, is the main draw, for me at least, of abstract art. Each and every person will get a different experience out of each image. That is how art should be, a personal experience that can also be shared.

Why We Love Abstract Art

As a professional Artist I am passionate about art and how I can use it to express myself. I also have a passion for nature so in my abstract art paintings I combine the two. I believe that abstract art is the art of the future as it conveys a message to the observer.

In my experience, and I hear this from my customers all the time, people are drawn to the vibrant colours and shapes. A piece of artwork needs to resonate with the observer for that person to want to have it displayed in their home. The painting needs to ‘ring a chord’ deep within, to hold that ‘special something’, that ‘je ne sais quoi’. Abstract art can be a mystery, as people don’t know why they are drawn to a piece, it just IS right for them.

Colour and shape play an important part in the overall design of the abstract piece. Some people say that abstract art is ‘easy art’ or they say ‘a child could do that !’, playing down the greatness of the abstract work. However, most abstract art is inspired work that is channelled through the artist in one way or another, so abstract art has a unique quality of being a very personal art making it unique in its concept. Abstract artists work with their emotions and their sense of feeling for a particular subject, whether it be seascapes, landscapes, sunsets or flowers. The way in which I work is that I tune into nature and feel inspired by its colours and shapes, then I feel a sense of deep calm and peace and am then able to paint in a very focussed state, resulting in a unique piece of artwork. That is the beauty of abstract art, you never find 2 pieces the same!!

If anyone has a piece of abstract artwork in their home they will know that every time they look at that piece of art it changes their mood, a connection is made. And that is the crux of abstract art, it conveys a message. It can be a great healing tool whereby it can calm the emotions, spark desire or creativity, provoke a happy memory, enable the observer to daydream or just the fact of the colour vibration and the effect that can have on the observer. Abstract art is great, it can enrich our lives and enhance our environments whether it be the office or the contemporary modern home.

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