Abstraction Within My Art

When I am painting I am thinking about creating a beautiful and interesting representation of the landscape before me.

 Each one of my paintings is a conglomeration of ideas, feelings, marks, and colors.  These elements rise and recede to varying degrees.  They are controlled by nothing more than my instinct in the split second moment before they appear.  I do not go into a painting with a preconceived notion.

 My paintings are a conscious effort to let my subconscious reaction come to the surface without too much moderation or interference.  By being able to trust my feelings I am able to surrender to the moment.

 I do not go into a painting thinking about the mechanics of what I am doing beyond the basics of the composition and the color scheme.  

I evaluate each part of the painting as it relates to the whole.  The adjustments I usually make in the painting are intended to build strength in the composition and to build harmony within the painting. 

The objects in the painting are made by my choices of color, mark making, and the values.  

I consider my style of painting as Impressionistic.   The color of light in the landscape is the thing that interests me.

The values of the colors bring the shapes together into some semblance of what I am seeing.

To me it seems that the simplification of the landscape, is an abstraction of reality.  The shorthand used to describe is specific to the artist.  It is part of their DNA as a painter.

Here the lines, dots, dashes, and marks combine to create an image.  When you take these subelements out of the context of the painting; what are they?  

It is the intent of the artist's effort that binds all of these abstract elements into something coherent.  

As an artist everyone falls somewhere different on the realism-abstraction continuum.  I do not feel like I am locked into a certain spot on the continuum.  Some paintings are more representational than others.  

When I am doing my best painting, my color choices and my mark making feels like a spontaneous reaction to the subject of my painting and what I have put down as my version.

My efforts at representational painting are made from abstract mark making.  The more layers I have in the painting, the more realistic it becomes.  My best paintings are those that are loose.  The degree of looseness like everything else is on a continuum.  The efforts when I am able to put down a layer of mark making and step away from that part of the painting are the best.

The relative values within the painting bring the composition together. 

Without our most basic understanding of what things look like there would be no reference to what is the nature of abstraction.  Abstraction is the deconstruction of reality. 

All of these are parts of the same painting.

When the parts of the painting are taken out of context; their abstract nature is apparent.

How many abstract paintings does it take to make a landscape painting?

 The paintings within the painting add up to create a level of representationalism in spite of their abstractive quality.  

This painting like all of the others is the sum of its parts.  I do not think in terms of abstraction. Abstraction for me is a rationalization - my version of the truth before me; broken down into bite size pieces and described with my mark making.