Abstract art-Enjoined

In this contemporary abstract artwork, I created a pen drawing with a series of fused abstract forms meandering across the page. Working with the larger fused forms in the middle, I created a border of related abstract forms. A print was made, then hand colored with pastel and colored pencils. Though the work is small - 8.5x11 inches the intricate details were quite involved and took a long time to complete. Small works keep the eyes focused, the intensity and concentration, like a laser beam, on a small area at a time. Someone once said "to do a large painting, use a large brush." This has never been easy in the style and build-up method that I use.

Line drawing, for me, lays the foundation for most of my abstract paintings. It represents a skeleton on which to create more three dimensional forms, creating a balanced though informal composition, where color can be used to enhance and highlight certain areas. Colors can be bright and explosive or subdued and introspective. I try to be as original as possible in the start and completion of each work. That's what keeps the interest going. The thought of a new day, a new creative way, to express the thoughts and vision that stimulate the imagination.

Additional contemporary abstract paintings, drawings, mixed media artworks, digital artworks, and abstract collages can be found at http://www.yessy.com/emooyoung/gallery.html

How to explain the power of abstract art

Pablo Picasso in describing his art once said " The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape"...

Abstract art can incorporate all these diverse sources and produce an original artwork that explodes with color, excites the imagination, angers some skeptics, dismissed by traditionalists, but exists for its own sake. Contemporary abstract, modern art can open galaxies of new thought. Be critical of government and their policies, shame institutions that despoil the planet, depict man's brutality to man without representational images. Abstract art can also shock and anger individuals who disagree with the artists methods. Outrage others with their prices- $100,000,000 (diamond encrusted skulls) or bring delight to children. Art, skilfully employed, can soothe tired minds, drive men to war, sometimes a bidding war, across continents.

Do you have any thoughts on the power and potential of abstract art? How it could be used to move humanity to share and end poverty and disease? Have you visited the Rothko Chapel in Houston and felt the power, the silence, the awe? Yet, to reduce it to fundamentals, only paint was used in the most basic and abstract manner. But the calm that is felt is indescribable. Comparable only to Monet's 'Water Lilies' room at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.