Four Seasons by Ted Mikulski
Type in “Literal Abstract Expressionism” and what do you get? Nothing.
That may change after this post and I think it should. You see the idead behind LAE is to add something to a stagnent genre. You see abstract expressionism is traditionally about pictures of nothing, emotions scraped across a canvas. It was brilliant and certainly led the charge for other genres like minimalism.
However it is 60+ years later and nothing has changed. Abstract expressionism is still abstract expressionism. So heres the idea… Take a literal concept, for example, Man and Woman.. and create a comparison via abstract expressionism. Now it is not like this has never been done, but to give it a sub-genre in the wake of abstract expressionism I think is important. Because this concept is contrary to the very fabric of what the genre tries to accomplish. Therefore, calling it ‘Literal Abstract Expressionism’ is important and it allows the artists to represent things fully without having it necessarily look like it.
So here is what I propose. For all those abstract expressionists reading this out there, try giving literal meaning to a new work before you produce it. Follow that one idea into a finalized piece and that becomes LAE. No longer is it simply abstract or abstract expressionism. You will be riding the new wave of abstract expressionism. Spread the word to all abstract expressionists that this is a new genre and subset of a glorious form of creation.
Now if only I could spread the word out further than just this blog….
this is good man. i have influences like all artists. when im making art, im performing a process that is natural to me, the same way that a portrait artist does when he wants to make portraits. Unlike portrait art, my ideas are not entirely premeditated, though they are occasionally loosely planned, i let what every artists can consider to be their collective unconsciousness play a part in the creative process. an individual, unless infinitely creative, has a limit to what types of art they can fathom in their pre-conceptual mind; not a limit to what they can actually create, but a limit in the conscious minds eye based on what each individual has seen, heard, or experienced in their life. this means that there is an infinite amount of art that a person could not create by planning every aspect of there art process. Seeing, experiencing and altering the art freely, not following a concept or idea, while it is being created allows you to interact with the art almost as if your talking to it and hearing the things it speaks to you as the art is being formed. new ideas come to you after seeing the result of a brush stroke, or the covering of a previous move in a violent splashing of an entire gallon of paint on the canvas. these moves cant be predicted but happen nonetheless and cause you to act. this is a closeness to art that cannot be achieve from making countless sketches and preliminary designs. changing some if not all of your previous notions is almost a given when you dont let your learned mind, and do let your instincts govern your creative spirit. arbitration is the opposite of preconception; and i believe that i persons ‘entirely unique’ artistic expression cant be achieved through strict preconception.
if you think less stringently, perhaps carelessly, or even unintentionally about your actions when making your art, you can achieve a level of closeness with art that cannot be attained through planning every move; not that planning is detrimental to creativity entirely, it does however place barriers that are planned ‘to not be broken’ and are thus hindering the artists creative evolution. art is made by the intention; albeit the process iteself be unintentional, the ‘art making’ is intentional still.
By: taylor on October 1, 2009
at 9:31 pm