Good art is neither realism nor abstraction. People tend to polarize these ideas but I’ve taught art long enough to realize that both elements come into play in a good work of art. I’m doing more representational art now because that’s where I am, but I started in my graduate studies many years ago by painting abstract paintings and I learned a lot from doing them just as I’m learning now by painting what I’m doing. It can be said that all art is abstract, but also all art communicates something, depending on what the artist is attempting to express.
Here are two examples of my painting from the past. They were done at very different times in my life and in each case the work grew out of a lot of painting that was similar for that time. The styles only changed very slowly over a long period of time, and I can look back at them and believe that they are closely related even though you may see them as very different. If you polarize into thinking only one kind of style or form is worthwhile you will likely miss half of what life is about.
For example the first painting, Red Forms was painted the day President Kennedy was shot back in 1963. I was already painting this work when I heard the news of the event. It colored how I finished the work and how I interpret these forms. The second painting Wall I, painted in 1979 is a surface that anyone who grew up on a farm in America can relate to and has special meaning for me in that way. Both are abstract ideas and designs and both have a lot of realism to them.
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Red Forms 36″ x 24″ oil on canvas. ….Wall I 24″ x 37″ acrylic on gessoed board.
