ABSTRACTION
Suzanne Jacquot
art by Libby Mewing
What is non-represenational abstract painting?
All painting is a series of marks on a 2-D surface, so in this sense, all painting is abstract.
David Hornung, a well known teacher and artist, shares that it is impossible to make a shape or color that does not have a story so that a narrative is implicit in all paintings. As a viewer we assign qualities and attributes to shapes and color…. ie, an all blue canvas creates an atmosphere of quiet or calm, etc.,
He goes on to say, there is a distinction between subject matter and content. Subject matter is for pictorial painting (representational). If the painting is pictorial or referential, it takes the viewer out of the image and into the fictional narrative.
The content of a painting with no subject reference relies on the quality of the experience the viewer has of it (non- representational). If the painting is non-pictorial or non-referential, it takes the viewer inward to their own experience and response.
In non-representational art, meaning exists in the experience of the doing, namely in the maker. How the artist responds to the tools, the paints, shapes, colors, and application while creating the marks on the canvas is the artist’s internal experience, a dynamic process of unfolding as choices and responses are made.
David states that a painting consists of Subject Matter and Content. and Form.
Form is the structure which is in all paintings. It is the underlying complexity and formal relationships that hold the painting together which gives it integrity and authenticity. All enduring paintings have strong form. Non-referential painting comes alive and gives a strength and clear visceral response when the form is imbued with the painter’s truthfulness. And, form conveys the subject matter and content with clarity.
In summary, non-representational art is like music without words. It is an experiential resonance on the psyche that is richly translated into personal engagement with the object.
The artistic experience of making art is stated so well by another well known artist, Philip Guston:
“When you're in the studio painting, there are a lot of people in there with you - your teachers, friends, painters from history, critics... and one by one if you're really painting, they walk out. And if you're really painting YOU walk out.”
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