A Passion for Creativity

Abstraction

The process of abstraction holds endless possibilities. You can zoom in, zoom out, fragment, isolate, select and emphasize; the idea is to…mmm, even that is up for grabs. When subject matter is abstracted, one sometimes, often, looks for the elemental, the essence of a thing. It’s a bit difficult to describe in words, or do. One level of art looks at an object or experience in the visible world and records it, represents it as most see it. It may teach the viewer to really look, that’s good.

A step beyond just recording is the artist’s personalized impression of a moment or an object. That demands that there is a give and take between the artist and the subject matter, a developed perspective. Abstraction goes way beyond that. I should say, “Could go way beyond that” as some doesn’t. Mostly, there can be so much more for a viewer to perceive with abstraction but there has to be a desire.

Here’s an image from my impressions of the past weekend, the senses engaged in a certain area and then the abstraction of it.

©2012, Joan Desmond, River Journey.