People often ask me why I make abstract art - usually, it’s not other artists asking, it’s mostly the people who can’t quite figure out why I’d spend my life moving paint around into shapes that don’t look like anything they recognize.
These are the same people who when looking at my work, will squint, tilt their head, and then try to “help” the conversation by saying something like, “Oh! I see a bridge!” or “Is that a castle?”At which point I smile politely and try my hardest not to jump down their throat…but thinking OMG…..shoot me now. Truthfully, it’s not their fault! I get it- at a surface level it does seem pretty nutty and something a kid might do!!!
I’ll admit, my answer is not great! Steeped in ego and defensiveness - it goes something like this…. “Well, I went to art school and I do actually know how to draw accurately”. Then I might say something like…. It might not look like it to you, but abstraction is much harder than realism.”
Which in actual fact is true - but the fact that I start there in my response is messed up and I need to change it!
The real reason is simpler and at the same time way more complicated.
When I started painting abstracts in 2019, I already had decades in design and publishing under my belt. I understood color, composition, and style. But stepping into abstraction was like coming home to myself… and also discovering a whole secret world I didn’t know was in there.
Abstraction, for me, isn’t just a ‘style’. It’s a way of existing in the world. It’s a language without objects or likeness - just the raw interplay of color, form, texture, and gesture. It’s where feelings take shape, words disappear, and freedom takes over. It’s become my way to share with the world how I see things and how my psyche interprets emotion.
When I’m in the studio with a paint brush in hand there is no place else I’d rather be. Hours vanish, I forget to eat, I find myself lost in a world of color and form, dancing to the beat of my intuition…..and a great playlist!
Basically, if I was to break down, the reasons that have me keep showing up, day after day, canvas after canvas this is what it looks like:
Freedom - I get to follow intuition instead of rules.
No repeats - Every painting is a one-off that continually surprises me and never fails to teach me something new.
It’s personal - When I stand back and look deeply at what's been birthed on the canvases, I get glimpses of my inner world - layered, shifting, messy.
The challenge - There’s nowhere to hide; the whole thing has to stand on composition, balance, and energy.
It uses all of me - My design eye, color knowledge, and technical skill all come out to play.
It’s how I’m been seen - My work reflects my nature and my essence. It involves vulnerability and honesty. Through my painting, I have found my voice . It’s brought me recognition and validation.
Love - I’m head over heels in love with the process.
It keeps me curious – I never know where it’s going to take me.
It’s me – I’m not built to color inside the lines- so why would my art?
Sure our work is personal, but it’s also part of a much larger, ongoing conversation. From the geometric patterns of Islamic art to Hilma af Klint’s mystical visions, to Joan Mitchell’s wild, physical gestures- artists have found abstraction to be a way to explore what’s beneath the surface.
Abstraction is how we give shape to the invisible: emotions, spiritual states, memories, perceptions. As one writer said:
“Abstraction remains a powerful visual language for what cannot be easily named: the internal, the immaterial, the spiritual, the emotional, and the speculative.”
So now you know (although it fine if you don’t get it) …..this is why I keep coming back to abstraxction. Every time I step into the studio, I’m chasing something I can’t explain - but I can feel it. And if I stay with it long enough, sometimes it shows up on the canvas.
And that’s the magic I live for.
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