Abstracting Reality

I am not drawn to making purely abstract art, at least not at this point in my artistic development, because I am too infatuated by the physical world. When I paint, say, sunlight glittering on a mountain stream, I am participating in the beauty of that effect much more intensely than I would by taking a snapshot or simply admiring it for a few moments then passing on. In some way, I am trying to make that moment and that place mine. The pleasure I derive from such direct participation is so intense that by itself it could account for my need to paint. When I add the tactile pleasure of manipulating the paint, the experience is one to which I must return again and again.

Steve Whitney. Teton Creek. This studio painting
was inspired by a 6x8 inch plein air study.

 Abstract painters share a conceit that what they produce somehow more truly expresses themselves (or at least who they think they are or would like to be) than do representational paintings produced by the rest of us. That's a self-congratulatory fiction. A nonfigurative painting is definitely more self-absorbed, even solipsistic, than a representational painting, but that does not mean that it is truer to the reality of the painter, more valuable as a spiritual experience to either the painter or the viewer, or that it represents a purer or more refined approach to making images. It is simply a different type of subject matter, one that can be as trivial or quirky as a representational painting can be predictable or conventional.

All painting is abstraction. Representational painters necessarily abstract what they see, and their compositions, the abstract scaffolding on which they hang their images, can be every bit as complex and daring as those of paintings that are conventionally regarded as "abstracts."

Ilya Repin. The Unexpected Visitor. This complex interior scene
works because it hangs on sophisticated asbstract scaffolding.

 I like to imagine painting styles as a continuum, ranging, say, from realistic illustration at one end to purely abstract design at the other. Most of us find ourselves and our work camped somewhere along this continuum, depending on our temperament, taste, and training. What matters is not where you sit, but whether you like where you sit.

It is natural and proper in the beginning to focus on the development of technical skills; that is, on becoming familiar with the materials and tools of your craft and learning how to use them. At some point, however, you start thinking more about personal expression and its handmaiden, "style."

You start worrying about having your own "style" at about the time you actually start acquiring one. And that happens when your skills have developed to the point where you're not afraid to experiment on your own. Painters who already have a distinctive personal style will all tell you not to worry about it; just keep painting, it will come.

That style may turn out to be rather different from that of one or more of your current teachers. When that happens, it's time to move on to new teachers, who can help you along the next step of the way.

Some morning you may wake up to discover that while you weren't looking you became an impressionist or classicist or tonalist or colorist or expressionist or minimalist or abstract expressionist or surrealist or fauvist or whatever--and that it's all good!