Abstract Art, Are we being conned?

I’m aware there are objections to abstract art:

“I don’t understand it”.

“It’s a con”!

“A waste of money if you ask me”!

“Anyone can do that”!

“You’re telling me, if I throw some paint at the wall, I’m an artist”?

“Anything is art these days”!

Upon initial observation, abstract art can seem childlike, perhaps pretentious at best. But let’s look a little longer.

The word abstract relates to that which we cannot touch; non-concrete concepts: beauty, love; the Latin derivative meaning, to be “drawn away.” Essentially to be ‘detached’ from a tangible reality.

Do we give up on trying to understand and visualise love, because we lack a concrete object to label “objectively” love? Quite the opposite. For thousands of years people have created stunning poetry, paintings, music, and theatre inspired by the abstract concept of love. And we’re still unable to completely grasp its form.

To me, abstract art represents the unquenchable thirst of striving to visually communicate that which we can’t yet understand, or that we can not externally picture. It leads us to be drawn away into that invisible space which we cannot see with mere eyes or describe with words alone. Abstract art expresses something which the artist can only express through viscerally chosen elements. It transcends formal communication because it’s not ordinary. It’s intimate, haunting, spiritual, lovely, beautiful; extraordinary. These words are yet to have concrete form- but we understand them, express them, and find unity with one another through them.

We long to define this power that shapes every aspect of our being and is yet invisible.

Painfully aware of the juxtapositions in that we experience it, yet want to know it; represent it, and don’t understand it.

Abstract art seeks to occupy the gap between what is known, yet unseen.

It offers us a clue.

Written by: Chloe White August 2023