Sometime in 2019 I started making some 3D pieces out of paper. I was working with collage, so I’m used to working with pieces of paper. I’ve long enjoyed the space created by collage, the pushing and pulling of space. One day I found a scrap of paper with a black edge, painted in ink. And an idea, more like a picture, formed in my mind. I made a series of shapes, blackened the edges with ink, and started forming something. I often think of art-making as a map, with roads and landmarks, places and territories. There are unknown paths, there are deserts. I tend to go where I am led. It doesn’t mean I can just go anywhere, there are limits. And stop signs, and fenced -off areas. I do think I just extended the flat picture-plane into the space I’m in. That excites me.
detail, Orange and Blue Beat
This is an older piece, and it shows more of a direct influence from Stuart Davis.
It was made by severe restrictions on what I would do. I would lay color side-by-side only. It could have a few larger shapes, lightly penciling in the borders. I would pre-mix all the colors., including neutrals mixed from complements. I would start with nothing in mind, just adding shapes at will. I would think about music.
Relative Trees. Watercolor, ink, pencil on grey paper. 2020.
A band of tree-like forms all drawn together, side by side. The tops of the trees are stylized and abstract, almost like letter forms, but also like strange cartooned figures. The branches have been reduced to a line and placed in the centers of the trunks, and placed in the spaces between the trees, compacting the space, slowing the cadence. I’m especially fond of the bottom, where the land shape becomes another tree at the far right. The bars along the bottom make a playful road. The pebbled texture of the grey paper shows up in the pencil shading, not alluding to light and shadow, just a design element. The darkest watercolor shapes start the action on the left side, and finish it at the right.
3 ways to explore intuitive methods for generating abstract pieces
Let’s say you really want to make better abstract work. When you try to do this, it’s not full of the deeper meanings and suggestive forms we crave. You can use some of the approaches from the Surrealists, which were adopted by many of the Abstract Expressionists. Ok -so here are 3 ways:
Physic Automatism: This is where you just begin with shapes and lines; not having anything in mind, just to see what happens. This is much harder than it looks. You are trying to let chance play into it. Try using just line, or just shape, for better results. And do it a lot. Stand up for for better arm movement.
Take an object with a detailed surface, like a piece of wood, or pattern on something, and mimic it on your paper. See what else you could do with it. Apply this detail into an abstract composition.
Work in collage with torn and/or cut pieces of paper, with no imagery on them, or bits of imagery, as long as it’s haphazard, no pictures of anything, just lines or shapes are OK. Tear up failed pieces and re-use them in an abstract piece, drawing back over the pieces after gluing.
Perfect Sequence in Blue
Perfect Sequence in Blue is a watercolor and ink painting of an abstract landscape. This work is a response to Paul Klee’s Park in Lucerne, 1938. I enjoyed drawing the linear aspects of this and using just a little area of a warm orange to balance all the cooler blues and greens. It has a horizon line and a few other subtle spatial cues, all very minimal.
