I am not sure where I recall reading that Abstraction in art is relative to the eyes of the beholder. Or maybe that’s just my rendition on the subject.
Last month I wrote about my current ‘Cover-19’ series inspired by Quantum Mechanics and particle physics that explains some of the things we see if we have the proper technology. Yes, I am a bit of a science-geek. What I found is that with a little bit of image tweaking something magical happens, that might best fit into the visual category of Abstraction.
Top line: Abstraction is about imagination.
There have been numerous art movements in the one hundred years that Abstract art has been created. During that time, the attributes of Abstraction have included meditative, non-linear, non-specific composition based (versus Literal or Representational), non-referential, visceral, ambiguous, process driven, momentary existence, conceptual, experimental, serendipity, randomness, and not an accurate depiction of visual reality. I believe my current Quantum Elements artworks fit in multiple abstract categories, although I think that what I am exploring is inspired by the earlier Light + Space abstract art movement here in Southern California. Where as Light + Space was a west coast version of the East coast Minimalism art movement, my work is more visually complex, a mixture of soft and hard edges with pools of color.
So as I explained in my previous article, I decided to find out how my vision might be considered in the context of the exhibition curator as to what might be considered an ‘acceptable’ Abstract artwork. This would be the first time that have attempted to show this new series and I was looking for a little bit of validation. Okay, so I am not going to be validated so quickly.
Now having juried a number of exhibitions and as editor-in-chief of my magazine, I know that any submission is going to be judged by the merits of an individual. Which is one of the reasons I set up an editorial board for PhotoBook Journal so that the submissions would be broadly evaluated and not be subject just to my individual likes and dislikes. Thus after I had recevied the ‘rejection’ letter I decided to contact the others who also were not juried in and have our own on-line ‘Alternative Exhibition‘, which I will host here at the end of the week (Update. done). Cool!
Stay tuned for the end of the week exhibition. Should be very interesting.
Cheers & be stay safe
Doug
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My next art exhibition:
Update: February 20th – March 20th 2021; Photographs’s Eye gallery, Escondido, CA, a solo exhibition of my Memory Pods series (lens-based photography). Exhibition reception February 20th, 3-7pm.
Featured artwork: RTA7422-2 (Quantum Elements series) copyright 2020 Douglas Stockdale
Singular Images 