abstract

All posts tagged abstract

Untitled (2000)

Posted by Maverick ~ on December 10, 2019
Posted in: Art, Music. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

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Jim Dine arranges tools within his composition to create larger symbols, allowing his work to be both moderately autobiographical and open to interpretation.  Untitled (2000) uses a hammer, wrench, pliers, blow torch, drill and bolt cutters which create what looks like a phoenix rising from ashes.  The bolt cutters serve as its legs and the drill, handle, and blow torch as its wings.  At this time in his career, Dine was creating different bird motifs.  The phoenix—a symbol of rebirth—relates to themes in Marcus Jansen’s work that respond to a diagnosis of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from his time in the United States Army.  He used painting as a therapeutic release and as a way to re-emerge from the challenges and suppression of PTSD.

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Fallen Angel

Posted by Maverick ~ on November 9, 2019
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

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Fallen Angel (1959)
Oil on canvas
Byron Browne
American (1907-1961)

“A prime example of Abstract Expressionism, Fallen Angel (1959) features a gestural scene of an abstracted angel-like figure.  This work showcases his signature style of organic abstract shapes with his studies from nature.  Byron Browne was a founding member of the American Abstract Artist, an association to promote and understand Abstract art.  Browne and Willem de Kooning (American, 1904-1997), another founder, whose work is also featured in this exhibition, use a range of techniques, from gestural mark making to more detailed brushstrokes and figural abstraction.  Jansen echoes both Browne and de Kooning’s painterly gestural strokes in the collaged squares and pavement in Streets, attesting to Jansen’s contemporary conversations with Abstract Expressionism.”

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Soldier with Death before a Carousel

Posted by Maverick ~ on September 15, 2019
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

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Soldier with Death before a Carousel
Arthur Kraft
American (1922-1977)
Graphite and oil on poster board

‘Artist Arthur Kraft’s experience in World War II influenced Soldier with Death before a Carousel (ca. 1947-51). In this painting, a skeleton wearing a helmet and boots holds a champagne flute. This image likely symbolizes the alcohol abuse many veterans face as a result of their traumatic experiences at war. Both Kraft and the artist Marcus Jansen utilize symbolism in their works. Kraft uses the champagne flutes, figures representing death, and white doves; Jansen depicts empty dishes and a few coins in Empty Plates (2007) to emphasize the economic effects of war on communities, families, and individuals. These signs and symbols reveal personal and universal reflections on war across generations.’

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Impromptu

Posted by Maverick ~ on August 3, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

Impromptu (1929)
Helen Torr
American, 1886–1967
Oil on canvas

"Helen Torr’s Impromptu dates to the most prolific period in her career. It is, believe it or not, one of Torr’s larger paintings. The small but engaging composition exemplifies a balance of rhythm, control, and formal contrasts. A grid of squares, vertical bars, and ray-like dashes enliven overlapping circular forms and animate the painting. Carefully arranged and floating above the light-colored background, these elements demonstrate Torr’s interest in abstraction."

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At the Risk of the Sun

Posted by Maverick ~ on June 24, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , .


At the Risk of the Sun
Yves Tanguy
Oil on canvas (1949)

"Strange, organic forms appear in this dramatically illuminated, desolate landscape. A heart form can be seen on the right. To the left is an imaginative array of stacked shapes, referencing parts of human and animal bodies. Yves Tanguy and other Surrealist artists sought to reveal the contents of the unconscious mind. Inspired by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories, they depicted images from their dreams, nightmares, and memories. Tanguy based this image on the prehistoric stone monuments he saw as a child in Brittany, France."

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Bust

Posted by Maverick ~ on June 23, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , .

Buste d’homme (étude pour les demoiselles d’Avignon), Pablo Picasso

 "The first half of life is learning to be an adult-the second half is learning to be a child." - Pablo Picasso


Pablo Picasso – 1907 Buste de femme ou de marin (Bust of a woman or sailor)

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Social Fabric

Posted by Maverick ~ on June 18, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Social Fabric, yellow blue red
Carpet pieces on wood (2017)
Nevin Aladağ
(German, born Turkey, 1972)

'Nevin Aladağ combines pieces if tapestry and carpets from various parts of the world arranged as abstract works.  Different forms and motifs from Persia or from eastern Azerbaijan join monochrome segments with triangles and circles that negotiate formal elements of color, line, and space.  Ornaments, big cats, and birds from the Iranian regions of Tabriz, Nain, and Balochistan (symbolizing fertility, power, and happiness) contrast with monochromatic color fields and allude to craftsmanship going back hundreds of years.

The subject of borders and transgressing borders is not just addressed in terms of content, but also formally. Aladağ suggests the various onnotations of "social fabric"; social spaces are constituted by social fabrics, the demographic, historical, and cultural segments that constitute the structure of a society.  Aladağ's Social Fabric works suggest various temporalities that question conditions of production, globalized trade, and postcolonial perspectives introduced into a contemporary context.'


Social Fabric, blue petrol yellow
Carpet pieces on wood (2017)

Social Fabric, turquoise blue red
Carpet pieces on wood (2017)

Double Team

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 7, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Double Team 
Enamel paint on panel (2005)
Tom Burckhardt
American

Tom Burckhardt's Double Team represents his signature style-an abstract composition of energetic patterns and bright colors interwoven with passages of realism.

In the lower register of Double Team, the large square of warm beige doubles as an abstract element and construction material. Burckhardt manipulates scale and spatial relationships, representing diminutive workmen with caps and tool belts, who labor to construct the composition of the work of art in which they are depicted.

The postmodern Double Team borrows freely from earlier styles-zigzagging lines and stripes from Pattern & Decoration and Op Art, squares of color from Hans Hofmann and the vertical format of Chinese landscape painting. The red calligraphic line recalls Abstract Expressionism except that here the stylized gesture is a carefully planned, formulaic drip.

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Embraced: Yellow and Black

Posted by Maverick ~ on December 8, 2017
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , .


Embraced: Yellow and Black
Jules Olitski

This is an abstract painting. At the lower center edge is a white ovoid form, formed with thick paint and surrounded by a few brushstrokes of blue. Above is another dark ovoid and atop it is a patch of vivid yellow. Other colors, washed across the surface, are blue, white, burgundy, purple and black. All of the colors and forms are bounded by a continuous “frame” of orange paint which appears to have been poured, rather than brushed, onto the canvas.

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