Let’s Pull Up A Chair
‘The main thing is to be Moved,to Love
to Hope, to Tremble
to Live.
Auguste Rodin.
I became an Artist because of my love of Art in all it’s forms and even though I’m a Figurative painter,
my Love for Abstract Art goes way back.However I’m not afraid to admit that I didn’t always get it. You know what I mean.I would visit lots of Galleries especially on my Travels and I would inevitably find myself standing in front of an Abstract Painting .I would see other people Loving it ,I mean really Moved by it and well I just didn’t get it. It really bugged me.I could appreciate the piece at face value but what the hell was I missing. I really wanted In!!!
Then I realised what you really need when faced with a wonderful Abstract Painting is to ‘Pull Up A Chair’.
You need to be fully present, you need to sit with it, you need to lean in ,adjusting your eyes and you need to be patient and I promise you the Painting will eventually reveal itself within the experience.
As Mark Rothko (check out his Painting above) once said, ‘A Painting is not a picture of an Experience, It is the Experience’
I totally get it now after-all it’s said that if you stand long enough with a Rothko it can move you to tears. It’s an Emotional Experience.
With all Abstract work you have to give yourself over to the lack of any Narrative or Representation in the work and just spend time with it in it’s reduced form.
In this oh! so busy world of technology and data and speed, it’s more important than ever to go to Galleries and Museums.
We need Anti-speed , to slow down and to stop and really look , I mean really dial it down and be Still with a painting and let it reveal itself to you.In the words of the wonderful American poet Mary Oliver who passed away last week.
Quote: I hardly move, though I’m traveling a great distance……’ Stillness’….One of the doors into to the Temple.
