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Rach Codina's avatar

Love this breakdown of the visual experience. It is a relearning of seeing, with ALL of our senses. In Monet's words, “To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.”

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Filip's avatar

Agreed. It’s blasphemy to try to recognize everyday objects in abstract paintings.

Emotions are thoughts accompanied by somatic effects, like tingling or heaviness in throat and chest or goosebumps, and shivers sometimes overwhelming to cause full body shaking. With language, such thoughts can be described with words like warmth or comfort or uneasiness or bliss… and with visuals, such thoughts can be expressed with abstract painting. I love these two.

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Sally Warren's avatar

Interesting. I am part of a cooperative gallery of professional artists in a busy tourist town. I also had a long career in museum interpretation and education. I have always been fascinated by visitor experience. Observing visitors in our gallery (which features both 2D and 3D works) one sees the majority of people gravitate to 'recognizable' pieces. Hyper realism is highly praised as 'could be a photograph'. Sadly fewer people have the responses described by Filip in the previous comment. It takes encouragement and time for many of our visitors to find resonance with abstract works. If I have a chance I find discussion of materials and method helpful in diverting that search for an image ('oh look - I see the head of a horse'). Sometimes I can move from materials and method to colour and mood. But it takes time and gallery visitors often have a hard time slowing down. It is so encouraging when we see someone who is actually arrested by an abstract piece, when it moves them.

I too love your two choices in this post.

Thank you for your insight into more ways to engage people when talking about the art.

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