The essence abstract painting is a type of painting where there is no figurative definition to what one can see or interpret from. It is compositionally usually constituted of colour, form, shape, line, dot, distortion, exaggeration, dynamism and so on to convey feelings or concepts. Abstract paintings create worlds of their own with no peripheries in meaning or interpretation; thus, each to their own. The abstract painting processes generally involve transfer of organic feeling, powerful energy, conceptual depth, whether spontaneous creation, or premeditated composition either way intense or light enough to pump into an abstract painting. Some abstract paintings have concepts as their base while others don’t. It is a question of what and how the artist feels and what the artist wishes to say or not through the paintings.

Using elements like shape, form, line, dot, colour and texture, one can explore infinite possibilities with abstract paintings to express anything. Ways to perceive can be as many or more than the ways to create abstract paintings. As abstract (non-figurative) painting provides for further subjectivity and openness than normal, viewers are free to feel and internalize what they feel and look for, therefore what they see and consequentially how they feel about the abstract painting as an experience of their own.

Using the various elements, abstract paintings can extract the essence of feelings, frames of mind, states of the heart, frames from real domestic life, opulence from elite royal life and anything in the horizonal spectrum of things in between and beyond. There is thus, no barrier in terms of representational boundaries for subjects to be looked at objectively in this scheme of things, whether abstract paintings for sale in Bengaluru or paintings for your home in Bengaluru. It’s objective and universal that way.

Now, this also makes it challenging for many to try and understand what it may mean or why the art of abstract painting even exists. To clear the points on how to understand a form of art where there is only elemental chromatic representation sometimes even completely formless, let’s look at some important factors which will help facilitate resonance and empathy with abstract paintings.

1. Abstract paintings have energies of their own. Sometimes, just physically seeing the painting could make one sense the energy very organically and resonate with the energy straight up, to form a deeper connection. Now, how does this resonance happen? Well, sometimes it is not something that can be articulated, but many a time one could feel some intrinsic empathy either out of personal liking for the colours, or some visual intrigue with the form or simply the piece itself being sensorial with its mediums and surface having a strong presence taking the attention away as a natural. When the connection is established without even trying to be there consciously, it becomes something that is super special, organic, seamless, transient, very close to heart and creatively wholesome for the mind.

2. Stature of abstract art is such that another among the many ways to understand the work of art is through the artwork title and statement. The title can give us a peek into what the work could represent, what symbolism could possibly involve, a lens in order to dive into the intricacies of where the artist might be coming from when looking at a concept / situation / feeling / life experience as the case may be. This involves reading, resonating, connecting and seeing an overall image thereby through this entire screening process. It is then easier to understand what the context from an artist’s point of view was while creating the work and therefore then, how do we as viewers see the content now, in order to resonate or not.

3. There is also the method of technical dissection. Technique is an integral part of expression and offers enough / sufficient practical evidence of the artist’s prowess, skill, power, name, style, colours, identity and artistic standing among circles, all combined. The technique method can entail looking deeper into reasoning colours, texture, elemental usage, medium of choice being analysed as well as aspects such as the lineage in the technique to explore already experimented-with possibilities. This will help assess what can be done with the technique on a practical, execution level as far as the technical lens is concerned.

4. Another organic aspect which will get one to gravitate towards abstract paintings whether for sale in Bengaluru for your corporate office paintings or paintings for home in Bengaluru, or even globally, is the freshness of the creation. What is it that the creation is doing that hasn’t been seen about in the same way before. This will create a very natural appeal from the audience and attract people to come, have a look, creating gravitas thereby getting people gravitating towards a certain new energy, a fresh vibe. The unconventionality, commonality, rather rarity of it will look people straight in their face and persuade them to understand the point at least with a reasoned trail.

5. The artistic sensibility too could sometimes bring the idea home to resonate deeply with that sense of paintings though they might be formless, no-figurative or undefined in multiple ways with various ramifications. The process of the artist who hone their skills and brings it into the world with the painting is what becomes special, unique, customised, categorised, identified and much more over the gradual journey of decades to eminence.

Meaning, Impact and Memory 

Abstract paintings are inherently the understandings of human perception and human nature put into visual languages intrinsically as their essence comes from feeling and flow, which is what life is encompassed of. What we feel and how it flows through is pretty much how artists many a time unless they have premeditated processes with conceptual workings, planning, research, visual translations of all that is compiled in essence to then, execute as. A painting on a surface. Otherwise, it could be a pretty spontaneous and free-flowing process. The flow could be something that is naturally coming through and manifesting with form or an initial formlessness to then concretise to feel the way it does as the case may be.

What is important here to note, is that there is no right and wrong perception to receiving or viewing abstract paintings. The interpretation which derives meaning for each of us is completely up to us and doesn’t shake a head beyond what is painted upon. Without words it could express beyond what all words put together would unsuccessfully not. There is a deeper intellectual level sometimes and sometimes not. Subjectively, sometimes its even as practical as the materiality of the medium being the key exploration and so, visually the work of art might look abstract but the concept or technical exploration is a tangible one of experimenting with the medium or material itself being used in context for content in particular or general.

The impact one gets from a Creation is fully based off the perception one encases in connection as mentioned earlier. The meaning construed of interpretation is what then draws to the impact point leading to then being embedded in memories of people if the impact is that deep and far reaching. The impact too depends on multiple factors such as what the situation of the person is, circumstantial balance, relevance with respect to their lives, resonance in any or all of the ways some of which we saw earlier, and what the perception has delivered as meaning or not effectively or not. There are many sides to the same work if one thinks about it irrespective of whether the paintings for sale in Bengaluru is what you’re looking at for paintings for homes in Bengaluru or corporate office paintings.

There is a scarcity of understanding of the global universal aspects of things, not just Bengaluru in Mumbai or Pan-India but of a universal phenomenon through abstract painting being created as a global wave. The fragility lies in finding / discovering what the meaning does for one, in context, content, relatability or empathy, inspiration or motivation, feeling and energy and much more to list out a few ways to assess and gauge. What abstract paintings do for us is actually much to do with us popular to contrary belief as it needs to strike a chord for resonance to happen even on a basic level, even if not a deep connection or buying a work.

There is then the aspect of memory. How the impact flies off or is here to stay. As meaning lent itself to impact, so does impact to memory. The nature, depth, intensity, relevance and moving extent of impact determines how much it will matter to memory. If we actually take simple examples of events from our lives, some stay in our minds more than others for both the right and wrong reasons. Abstract painting are no different. If we experience with empathy, harmony, depth and a neutral lens, many works could do much more for us. If we experience with biases, judgement, sense of criterion and specificities with respect to looking up to, and looking down on, both the range and nature of works become lesser and start to do little for us. Maybe we feel like we’re missing out on some but that becomes non-realisationally consistent and committed gradually.

The nature of abstract paintings is therefore such that memory keep it super safe as it is felt inherently and most authentically whether good or bad in our dictionaries. There is a processing that happens subconsciously most of the time and consciously sometimes, unless fully aware so. The processing involves thoughts such as we sometimes don’t know why we don’t like some works and likewise, we don’t know why we love a work of art so much sometimes. Well, this happens due to the processing not only being subconscious but also rapid enough for us to consciously not register it as it is to an extent of even an unconscious resonance or just not. This is dependent directly on multiple psychological, physiological and contextual factors.

There can thus, be many ways to register impacts and store them in memory or not, in accordance. There is an abundance of content, context, knowledge, interpretation, impact and memory to be manoeuvred through and we slowly get to realising that the scarcity lies not in the Creation or the Creator but in the Understanding of it. Barriers, shortcomings, revelations, discoveries, messages, insights and developments not only for the future but in context to trace even back to histories and timelines are possible only through ways of eradicating these challenges and narrow stands in understanding such an inhibited channel with unlimited inhibition being its key and only enemy.

Memory becomes all the more special when the meaning is that deep to remain and stay for a long time in relativity to others and we all have our own favourites in the arts. This is the cyclical nature of meaning, impact, memory and back to meaning. This cyclical nature of things also represents metaphorically the cycles in life of there and not there or there but not there.

Conclusion 

To consolidate ways to understanding abstract paintings, we could go with the organic energies, or with the visual forms as a superficial rather visual derivation of the seen colour, texture, form, meaning and so on. Or we could go with a reader’s approach to take a peek into what the artist’s point of view is as well as get a lens into the creation. There can therefore be multiple ways to decipher and find meaning or for many people no meaning too, depending on eye for value and a heart for relatable feeling in the terms of artful connections.

The cycles of meaning, impact and memory are inevitably interwoven in the world of abstract art to proliferate activity for our senses and interpretations to hit an endless peak of possibilities. There is no right or wrong wing to perceiving abstract art and therefore, we could do much more to receive much more from the works rather than expecting the work to do something irrespective of our approach which is a no brainer on zero curiosity heeding no favourably creative open results anytime for the growing future.

Exploring possibilities through a variety of these artistic doors, at Sparsha by Radhika, we explore possibilities with concept and feeling to embed memorable experiences for our clients’ spaces to be energized in the most effective and special ways with our abstract paintings in Bengaluru. We work Pan India and Abroad.

Get in touch with Radhika to get going with your very own abstract painting!

Radhika is an abstract artist creating abstract paintings based in Bengaluru, servicing abstract art requirements for HNI homes and Commercial Spaces.