Thread by @nerdlypainter

#Artadventcalendar Day 21 more "old work", post PhD, during my Professorship in the Tufts Biotechnology Center: Yellow Conundrum, Autumn in the Pioneer Valley, Atlantis Sinking, Street in Vienna

I'm posting a mixture of representational and abstract work with these older ones - some think Abstract Art is all doodles and splishy splashy mindless fun (prob not my followers - I post a lot of Abstract). @AbstractArts @AbstraksMag

Many Abstract artists are very disciplined, directed, focused and are constantly challenging themselves. Certainly most of the ones I know are. When an artist makes the decision to do something unique and compelling, abstraction and abstract add to the challenge.

It's much easier to work to a spec - to create a picture of a chair that looks like a chair for example. Find a chair and translate what you see - that translation of an object difficult enough and requires learning some skill

But now imagine trying to translate an idea - convincingly so that other people can "see" the idea. At it's best Abstract Art is about translating ideas. Those ideas can be hard-to-articulate emotions, hunches, archtypes, fears, impulses.

Ideas in Abstract Art can also be meta - challenges to how we see art, how we categorize art, how we use materials, what we expect of Art in different media (I do this in both my Abstract and my Representational work) - or even art about an abstract idea (science has these)

SO for the "wonderful colorful splishy splashy fun doodles" reactions - No. Simply No. And you have my well-executed Representational work as proof of my artist credentials to back up that No. I can draw, I can paint, and I abstract on purpose to convey specific ideas. Thanks!