Latest posts by michael wilson (see all)
- JORDAN RIVER - February 5, 2019
- Inspired Art - August 2, 2018
- Waiting for Inspiration - July 31, 2018
- The Bridge between Painting and Photography - July 31, 2018
Abstract art as response is of course fundamental to the process of painting. The process of art begins with response. Reaction is another word, emotional response or reaction to something experienced or seen, or felt or imagined. Abstract expression provides a more immediate response. The demands of detailed sketching or formalized concepts is usually unnecessary and even obscures the purposes of painting abstract work.
As I get older it seems to me my responses have a sense of prayer in them. The response and then the actual painting have that same kind of spiritual attention. There is a searching involved. Prayer has that quality of not knowing exactly how or what to pray for so we give it up (so to speak) to a more Universal intelligence, to God, to that which connects us all. Painting certainly has that quality. We start out not quite knowing what to say or how to say it and hope that some Universal sense will go beyond my own limitations – helping then in the response. There is a feeling of mystery in the process.
In my most recent painting are two central rectangles that are being separated. A ragged edge seems to represent a tear. Each side is essentially of the same color with just slight variations. These two forms are dominant. Around them swirl various forms, squares, shapes and circles which I suppose might represent the complexities that bombard us every day – all the choices, all the decisions. All of this floats on a platform and this particular platform has its own inherent drama. Each of us have our own orbit of relationships and these individual relationships make up our platform. Then from an arch that opens up to a sky comes a band or ribbon of yellow that circles and then sweeps across the two ragged torn forms. This may represent some shaft of light, some enlightenment, some spiritual awareness which wants to bring a wholeness to the images.
The painting is certainly a response but I can never know exactly the precise form of the response. I can be grateful however in the medium of painting abstraction to express it. Perhaps this has something to do with the recent difficulties my son is going through. Maybe it has something to do with my own inability to establish solid relationships which have meaning and higher value. It probably is many things – emotions that overlap each other. As I have said before in past articles it is important to just paint…literally to respond by painting to these impressions. Abstraction as a medium is wonderfully adaptive to this process.