Many of the terms used to describe abstraction,  words like spiritual and sublime, no longer seem appropriate.  In part, this may be due to the postmodern deconstruction of texts as being pure rhetoric with no actual reference to the world.  Another reason may be that we have come to realize that abstraction does not desire a verbal description; it rejects the recognition and classification that language bestows on the world.  Abstraction attempts to describe plastically what is beyond language, to depict a parallel universe that begins at the point where the actual perceptual experience of the image begins.

The profundity of this experience cannot be determined by a text or classification but only by the level of plastic form attained and the degree of receptivity of the viewer.  The manipulation of form becomes the source of the context, which may have

 a counterpart in the world but not necessarily as a palpable entity.  As we know, there are many layers  of being invisible to the eye.  The dilemma of the abstractionist is to portray a credible world without using any of the symbols and narratives that characterize the �real world�.  To equal the world�s presence, the abstractionist has to rely on a strong sense of plastic form and the physical reality of pigment.

Moreover, the abstractionist only creates form so it can be dematerialized; the deeper secret of the abstract world is that the assumed duality of presence and absence is a linguistic construct and that in fact they coexist in one another: are indivisible.  Likewise, space and time become one entity in abstraction; it may be imaginary in its boundlessness but is no less valid than the space and time of our world, where time is an artificial construct and space is elastic.

Copyright 2000  - Peter Pinchbeck