Abstract art can be vexing. Even at one’s most imaginative, the idea that art needs to depict something is, by default, unquestionable.
What if what is being depicted is hard to see?
I like the idea of art “putting the brain to work,” so to speak; and abstract art seems to do this by encouraging the brain to come up with its own visual. It is the semi-psychic idea that art can be produced in the mind just as well as if the image was concretely on canvas.
Abstract Expressionism epitomized this idea: can you glean the forms of the city in Pollock’s #48?
I’m no Jackson Pollock, of course, but yesterday I found myself in a surprisingly abstract mood, and so, compelled to simply work with acrylic and brush, I put some of my neon purple blacklight paint to work. There was no plan to follow; the brush told the story as it dragged through the paper, with some interesting results.
Can you see what I see?
Can you see how the forms shift?
Can you see how shapes contort into life-forms?
