Understanding Abstract Art - One Artist's Perspective
Posted: Sunday, October 05, 2008
by Keith Garrow
http://www.keithgarrow.com
"Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of
a bird? …people who try to
explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree."
-Pablo Picasso
What Picasso says about understanding art is
very relevant to how we approach abstract paintings. Many people think that abstract paintings
must have a specific meaning of some sort, which could be clearly understood and
articulated if only they knew how. This
misconception is not helped by the endless supply of people prepared to spout
nonsense about what they think the artist was trying to say. The almost inevitable consequence of this situation
is that people can either feel as though they are being excluded from sharing in
some secret knowledge, or alternatively conclude that abstract painting is in
fact all a sham. Either way, the result
is that many people do not feel well-disposed towards modern art or abstract
paintings.
The viewer should not look for a clear narrative in an abstract painting - it is not going to tell a story, or refer to an external ‘subject' in the same way that a figurative painting will. But that does not mean there is no meaning or no subject, or that abstract paintings cannot communicate with and move people. When asked about subject matter, the Abstract Expressionist artist Jackson Pollock said, "I am the subject". Pollock's statement is not just true, it is inevitable.
The experiences, personality, memories and mood of the abstract artist cannot help but be fed into the painting if the artist approaches the work in an open and honest way. I do not need an external subject or idea before I can create a painting – I simply begin. The fact that I am me and no-one else is what makes my work different to anyone else's, and the same is true of all artists. The colours I choose, the marks a make, the accidents I choose to leave, or to obliterate, these are all things that I choose because of who I am.
If you were to present several different artists with the same basic design on a canvas and ask them to pick up a brush and develop the painting, the differences in what they would choose to do would be enormous. I have watched other abstract artists at work on paintings and thought "I would never in a million years have chosen that colour and put it there." Not because I think it is wrong or bad, but because they are who they are and (to quote that other leading artist, Morrisey!) "only I am I".
I found myself reading the article twice gaining a bit more meaning from it each time. I was reminded how each of us is so different in our thought and influences.
