|
"Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of
a bird? …people who try to
explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree."
-Pablo Picasso
What Picasso says about understanding art is
very relevant to how we approach abstract paintings. Many people think that abstract paintings
must have a specific meaning of some sort, which could be clearly understood and
articulated if only they knew how. This
misconception is not helped by the endless supply of people prepared to spout
nonsense about what they think the artist was trying to say. The almost inevitable consequence of this situation
is that people can either feel as though they are being excluded from sharing in
some secret knowledge, or alternatively conclude that abstract painting is in
fact all a sham. Either way, the result
is that many people do not feel well-disposed towards modern art or abstract
paintings.
I certainly identify with Picasso's remark as
far as my own paintings are concerned. If
I had a specific message or a meaning that I could articulate in words, then I
would articulate it in words – the painting would have no purpose. The whole point of creating an abstract
painting is that it embodies something that only it can, in a way that cannot
be put into words. It is not an essay it
is a painting – it encompasses and expresses things in a language that is
unique to the medium of paint. That is
why we should not try to ‘understand' abstract paintings in the way people sometimes
feel they ought to be able to.
The viewer should not look for a clear narrative
in an abstract painting - it is not going to tell a story, or refer to an
external ‘subject' in the same way that a figurative painting will. But that does not mean there is no meaning or
no subject, or that abstract paintings cannot communicate with and move people. When asked about subject matter, the Abstract
Expressionist artist Jackson Pollock said, "I am the subject". Pollock's statement is not just true, it is
inevitable.
The experiences, personality, memories and
mood of the abstract artist cannot help but be fed into the painting if the
artist approaches the work in an open and honest way. I do not need an external subject or idea
before I can create a painting – I simply begin. The fact that I am me and no-one else is what
makes my work different to anyone else's, and the same is true of all artists. The colours I choose, the marks a make, the
accidents I choose to leave, or to obliterate, these are all things that I
choose because of who I am.
If you were to present several different artists
with the same basic design on a canvas and ask them to pick up a brush and develop
the painting, the differences in what they would choose to do would be enormous. I have watched other abstract artists at work
on paintings and thought "I would never in a million years have chosen that
colour and put it there." Not because I
think it is wrong or bad, but because they are who they are and (to quote that
other leading artist, Morrisey!) "only I am I".
|
