Leave preconceived ideas at home and explore color and form for what it does to the mind and body! Having recently conducted some workshops and a demo on automatism, layering, and abstraction, I am invigorated in the call towards are greater public understanding and celebration of the mental rocket fuel that is the Art of pure color and form.
Color and form speak to us in a way that language cannot, that any image or idea that relates directly to an object cannot. Even when one paints a landscape, or a cow, one abstracts the essence or image of the cow in the form of a painted picture. Take the image away, and you do not lose the power that color and form have over our minds, our imagination, our sense of harmony.
We do not ask all of our music to narrate a highly literal theme, we celebrate the flow and rhythm of the notes and harmonies and sound combinations for their own sake, for how they make us feel or see. Listening to an opera in a foreign language does not diminish the beauty and power of the composition beyond the narrative. If anything, it brings a focus to the magic of the music, its subtle and bold powers, without the distraction of analyzing words or forming a literal theme. As a species, we are better off to incorporate this idea more ravenously into are larger social consciousness, particular when it comes to painting.
One important social implication of abstract painting, and the automatist, build as you go approach to composition, can be illustrated with the public mural. If one paints a mural from a narrative and personalized perspective one inherently stands to alienate at least some of the public who may not identify with or approve of the narrative. Sometimes, this is important, because some public Art is meant to incite an outcry towards perceived injustice, or questions our destructive environmental and consumption choices, which is meant to upset the current systems of the social order. But not only is it important that we have a greater rise in Art designed to unite and harmonize the positive potentials of our social consciousness, but to voice these in a universal language.
One language that almost all people are fluent in is color and form, which is to say, that whether or not you get or agree with a narrative or subject based public mural, one can be overtly and subconsciously moved by the color relationships and compositions integrity of the pieces as a whole. Take away the elements of narrative or representation that can hinder the full immersion in this other universal language, and you have a public spectacle with the potential to move and reach all viewers on a deeper level.
There is another, very important public implication in the move towards abstraction, and that is the collective, evolving mural. If a person paints a mural of a particular subject matter, in a particular representational technique, it serves as a period, a stop sign, to any other interaction with that surface. If I came behind a portrait painter and added a number of circles, however compositionally sound, it would be abhorred by and large as vandalism. But if the painting was a flowing abstraction, I could add another layer too it, within respect to the original composition, and not only supplement the painting itself but bring another level of community into the realm of public Art. And this process can go on, it can be celebrated and nourished, and would inevitably include the efforts a lot more painters of different crafts and strengths. Take the ego out of tagging; replace names and words without content into a celebration of the colors, the forms, the integration of harmony. Create a canvas that invites communion and creation rather than alienation and vandalism.
There are other important elements to the social and conscious evolution of abstraction. I will be revisiting this theme often in the future as I construct this series, A Call to Abstraction!