Re: Representation vs Abstraction in the Neocon Era
Hmmm, I understand what you are saying and can appreciate it. However, I think art, is art, is art. For me it's the personal connection that the artist has with his work that can make or break a piece for me. Often artists I have dismissed out of hand, when i get to know their motives, their purposes for creating what they create I develope a profound appreciation and love for their art, even if their was none before. The artists story is very important to me. I can have a profound connection to figurative work, I find still lifes to bring about a inner calm, a quiet moment in a MUCH too busy world, I can stand before the monotony of the Rothko Chapel paintings for hours letting the picture plane flood every corner of my vision. I once read that Rothko said that if you admire the colors in his paintings you have missed his point intirely. (very approximate quoting there, dashing off to work and dont' have time to go look right now.) Anyways, I guess what I'm saying is that I think it's good that the pendulum of art taste swings back and forth. And it's good that the pendulum is taking a swing back to beauty, as it were, that's ok for a painting to just be pretty, I paint non-representationally, expressing my emotions, my faith in little more then color, texture, and surface, but I love to plop down in front of a little still life setup and recharge my batteries. Sometimes, when I'm really stressed, I can see myself in my minds eye, a old man, painting the comfort of little still lifes. And that's ok, art for the artist, and not for anyone else, if they like it, they like it. Didn't Picasso struggle with this issue? Alternating between abstractive phases and more traditional literal representational phases? Look where he is at today. Paint what you love. Buy what you love, what you connect with. Be it figurative, still life, abstraction, or non-representational works. I love it all, and I love the artist's stories who create it. I have to get to work.

James

I'm including a work by
Angela Fraleigh I had the pleasure of taking a class from Angela at the Glassell School of fine art in Houston while she was a member for the CORE fellowship there. I just read on the internet she is having her first one man show at the Inman Gallery. Her figurative work, LITTERLY takes my breath away.
...and just her one thought
96 x 96 in. Oil on panel