Abstract Art

The abstract paintings that I have been familiar with all seek to gain new insight into the realm of art. These artists include:

Josef Albers,Alexander Calder, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Joan Miro, Piet Mondria, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Frank Stella.

It is hard to ignore their contributions to our search for the perfect abstract. I have sought to search for something even though it is always unclear what that is. An Abstract artist does not start with a “something” to paint and yet I have obviously found real things that my art resembles. In naming abstract paintings, the artist looks for realism in the names. Finding a name other than “Abstract Blue Number 26” is hard to do. The artist had no intention of realistic painting but a name has to be found.
It is said The most celebrated and famous abstract artists are masters of their form. Early pioneers, such as Kandinsky and Delaunay experimented with color, shapes and symbols. Later in the century, in the creative explosion that was abstract expressionism, artists such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock demonstrated new ways to make art and, with their huge canvases, gave us new ways to experience it. Pollack’s “Drip Paintings” became the foundation of our thinking of both modern art and modern abstract paintings. The large canvas became the norm. Museums are large places and large canvasses are appropriate. A museum was as far away from my thoughts as they were to Van Gogh or other earlier artist whose work is small, like my abstract paintings.

My concern with the abstract painting of the past is the lack of form. The paintings tend to cover the canvas uniformly and the thought of a “background” is a thought that I like. Form is an important part of my abstract paintings. Most of my abstractions have both a shape and a background. I sometimes seek to create paintings in which the viewer can participate. By participate I mean the viewer can see real things like making shapes out of clouds. If I create an abstract paintings which you think looks like a dog and I think looks like a rabbit, then I have succeeded.

I don’t think of him as a painting. When he comes up he’s just “Pac Man”. He has his own identity. He actually was painted circa 1993 in oils. Sometimes you are just slinging paint. In order to paint there has to be no fear and it has to be worth nothing, an experiment, it doesn’t count, it’s just extra materials, this one doesn’t count, I’m just doing one for fun.

The key to my art is lots of materials. I wish I had Theo to support me completely and buy me all of those materials. Where is my Theo? Vince you never knew what you had or you wouldn’t have pulled the trigger.

Every now and then the songwriter catches those notes or those words out of thin air. The painter does too….sometimes the paint seems to fall on the canvas like it was falling from the sky. The creative process in of itself is almost mystical. The act of creating any thought is mystical. Pac Man didn’t come from the game, he came from what I thought were random motions of my hand.

With any art, music, writing you sometimes get Pac Man and wonder why you don’t nail it every time. I once did the Pollock thing and poured paint onto canvas. Two out of ten were really neat. I didn’t like those odds but I wonder why the “tried hard on these” percentages are somewhat the same. Did Van Gogh flip through them and think, “Starry Night. What was I thinking?”

Pac Man, “What was I thinking?”

Many discovered artists do their best work before the discovery. Real discovery is that painting you discarded last year but suddenly looks like someone else painted it.

From the collection of Ralph (Abe) White

david michael jackson   again…..send pretty rocks and shells and sticks