Because it gives me the opportunity to leave concrete reality behind to explore a visual language to reveal my authentic self.
Sounds like a mouthful.
But I’m not trying to perfect a landscape or paint a bowl of fruit in an attempt to get the form, colours and shading “right”. I’m not trying to paint like Rothko, Matisse or Turner because then I’m not painting like me. I don’t want to paint like anybody else.
I want to paint like me.
Painting whatever I want. Painting what I want to see as it appears on the canvas. With no idea in mind as I start, I separate the attachment to an outcome from the understanding of the choices in front of me.
I have the freedom to come up with anything.
Sounds easy but it ain’t. It starts to raise all these questions. Ones like “but…who am I?”.
That’s why I paint abstract.
I may never get all the answers to that particular question but along the way I get to make all the choices. My choices. They’re not right or wrong but I allow myself to seek out the beauty in what seems to be broken. Just like me. Broken. Imperfect. Human.
Over time I get to unravel, learn and understand more about myself.
As my friend and artist Ann Needham so perfectly put it;
If you paint long enough, whatever you love, loath or want to hide about yourself, you will meet face to face on the canvas.