Does abstract art have a meaning? How does abstract art work?
A walk through my creative process.
Abstract art is considered a form of escaping from the rules of reality. A deviation that frees our mind to what we are supposed to think and believe. An inner perception. It does not make a reference to a specific object but, instead, projects symbolism, purity, order, even simplicity, in forms, colours, textures, shapes and shades. Every mind will create it differently.
How and why did I start creating abstract art then?
Since I realised that drawing or painting helped me to focus my ideas or even to see more clearly how to approach problems, I do it anytime that it is possible. I can spend months without creating anything at all, and suddenly, from nowhere really, spend one or two weeks, day and night, just painting in many formats, shapes, colours and materials. The deeper I get into this process, the more accurate are my paintings to my actual situation.
When I start a painting, there is nothing in my conscious mind. I try not to think in anything at all. It is like meditation, somehow. I feel using a specific material or a format, and a colour. Those are my initial guides. Then, I let the hands do their will, finding the lines or circles, in a strong colour or a mixture with water, to make some light shadow-look figures. In this first stage of the painting, I am totally submerged inside the painting, nothing is around me anymore, I am inside my brain, exploring freely, with no route to be covered, just “walking” the walk. Once my hands decide that it is the right moment to stop, I do. I step backwards for a more peripheral vision of the painting, I contemplate it for a while and I decide if I want to keep going using another colour, tone or density, or if, by the contrary, I want to make a pause before starting the second stage.
Pauses can be of different length. Some of them can take just a couple of minutes, really, while others can keep going for years. Some paintings talk to me in an easier way, where I can finish the painting in the same day, with no even a small pause. Other paintings need an extra something that it seems not to be in me yet, because it takes time for me to come back with that stroke that tells me: “This is it!”.
When I reach that voilà moment and I feel satisfied with the painting, it is time for me to actually “read” the painting. You see? The concept itself is not revealed to me at the beginning of the process but rather at the end. I sit with it, I go through all the process recorded in my memory while I was creating it, and I observe that my mind wasn't quiet during the making, the opposite indeed. I just needed to “write” the words in another language to make them appear before me to understand. Thus, with the help of going back, step by step, in the process, and all the thoughts accompanying it, everything speaks loudly, and the concept is born.
Is the concept a fixated feeling or can it evolve?
What I love the most in an abstract painting is how it makes people feel, in so many different ways, up to where they are in life. Our life keeps going and it evolves, if we are lucky enough. Our core doesn’t change, because it is what we really are, but we have many other characteristics that will vary on time, defining a more open and mature mind. My painting is done in a certain time and moment, registering some episodes that were happening right there. With time, I come back to it, to “read” again those feelings or perceptions. Now, my mind is not the same as before. It has lived a bit longer. It has loved harder. It has had some losses. It has survived and enjoyed different situations and people. My old eyes are not the same as my new eyes, therefore, they see the strokes under another influence. Then, ask me years later, what’s the concept of this painting. Do you have an abstract painting at home? When did you buy it? Sit for a minute, in silence, and let it flow inside you. Let it talk to you, to your new ears, to your new eyes, to your new skin. When you bought it, was it saying the same thing as today?
R. Pedrosa
Riviera del Sol, Mijas
02 Mayo 2023