How to Respond Swhen Your Efirneds Share Abstract Art

Painters paint for many reasons, and I believe emotion is one of those. The human activity of painting in itself can be a release of feelings, or a way to handle life events. So emotion plays a function in the making of the piece of work, but it likewise plays a role in the viewing of the work. Some artists like to plan ahead, with a specific intention for the painting's response past a viewer. While other artists allow for a broad variety of responses while viewing the painting. Either mode, emotion is one attribute – and possibly a significant one – for painting.

While attending a show of works past a friend of mine, I was reminded about how emotion can play a major role for painting. I was asked to give a talk to the prove'southward attendees during the show, and felt an urge to write about it hither.

Sometimes it'south best to say no

That's what was going through my head a few days before my friend Gigi Mills had her solo gallery show. A select grouping of her collector'south was invited to a individual cocktail party the evening prior to her opening. Brilliant marketing idea. And I had been asked to give a public talk about her paintings at this party.

How difficult can it be?

I was familiar with her work, and I've given public talks nigh art earlier. I said aye. I began writing out a plan. My mind raced, adrenaline pumped. Why was I so nervous? I wrote, rewrote, edited, rewrote again – and worried. Would my friend still like me in the forenoon?

I wrote for many hours – fashion more then I commencement thought would exist required. I stuck with speaking from the centre and with my honest opinion. More importantly, I wrote with the intention to go the audience to LOOK – to spend more time with the paintings on display. That WAS the point after all, right? Anyway, spoiler alarm – all went well in the cease, I received several give thanks-yous from attendees, got into some fun and heated artistic arguments about a few of the ideas I presented, and paintings sold.

How to give a public talk without feeling nervous

Not possible. At least in my stance. But be OK with the fear, suck it upwardly, and do it anyway. It's worth it. As an creative person, it's good to speak in public. Gets us introvert artists out of the studio, and practice talking well-nigh art. Whether your ain – or someone else's. Doesn't matter. It'southward all good.

Here is my draft for the talk. Keep in heed I encouraged audience participation – questions and interruptions – adding a lively banter and some boosted deviations not in the typhoon. The artist is Gigi Mills. Her piece of work is represented by GF Gimmicky, an art gallery located in my hometown Santa Iron, New Mexico. Her show is titled Prima Materia on exhibit fall of 2019.

It began with the usual thank-you lot and introductions…. I'll spare you all that and dive correct in.

MY TALK

I consider Gigi Mills a principal painter and believe in her work wholeheartedly.
And here's why.

Laundry/Hanging the White Sheet, oil on console, 24″ x 18″, Gigi Mills

When I wait at paintings I search for an image that has PRESENCE – an immediate visual appeal, an impact, along with a sense of daring and originality from the artist. Generally, something of the unexpected. All of this I find in Gigi'southward work.

I can tell this is a sophisticated audience, and then please sense of humour me while I start with a elementary question – What is a painting? Basically, information technology'south an image painted on a flat surface. This definition even so, would work for wallpaper as well as painting, right? Both are images on a flat surface. And so here's where it gets fun and tricky! Plainly (at least in my listen) wallpaper and painting are NOT the same. Good wallpaper designers create their piece of work to be seen as periphery or background so the imagery will not upstage the people and room where it adorns the wall.

A painter on the other hand, wants someone to take detect. They want their painted paradigm to be seen! And not only a quick glance, but indeed with riveting effect. And so much and then that the viewer will gaze at the work long enough to fully engage, make a connectedness with the painter, and in the stop take a meaningful experience. A painting is a vehicle of communication between painter and viewer.

What's your immediate reaction to a painting?

When looking at fine art I like to pay attention to my first response. Is information technology intellectual or emotional? Is the immediate touch on a thought or a feeling? A painting tin stimulate both,

Andy Warhol, 1962, acrylic on canvas, xvi″ 10 20″, Museum of Modernistic Art, NYC, photo by Hu Totya – wikipedia.org

but usually one is more immediate than the other. Andy Warhol's soup can paintings give us a good example of an prototype that provokes an intellectual response. Yes they take aesthetic appeal, only Warhol'due south principal intent I believe, is for the viewer to think about the relationship between commercialism, marketing and the art world. With Warhol, it'southward the IDEA we probably observe get-go.

Gigi's piece of work on the other hand, is primarily emotional. Yes the images take narrative elements and can stimulate thought, but emotion is what hits united states of america foremost. Do you agree? And information technology's OK to disagree. That's an essential aspect of art – to inspire word. Is there any particular painting here that you feel brings up a specific emotion?

Some emotions offered by the audience: mystery, intrigue, pensive, melancholy, tenderness, meditative, sense of awe, a stillness, longing, want, wonder, solitude, aliveness, romantic, surprise, peaceful, spiritual, expansive.

Expansive – that's an interesting one I had not thought of before. Can you betoken out ane of the paintings that experience expansive to you? (Night Heaven & Starfish, was pointed out as case.)

Nighttime Sky & Starfish, mixed media on paper, 80″ x 46″, Gigi Mills

How to paint emotion

The other mean solar day Gigi and I were pondering the question – How do you pigment emotion? The first thing that came to mind was COLOR. Color is always contained in some shape – in both life and in art. For instance we look up at our seemingly limitless blue heaven above only the view is cut off at some point – is framed by buildings, trees, etc. Even a Marking Rothko color field painting uses squares inside squares, subtle though they may be. And ultimately all paintings are contained by the outside edges of the canvas its painted on.

Colour and its shape or container. This pairing solitary will convey emotion equally clearly as a Shakespeare tragedy. Wassily Kandinsky was one of the first artists to write well-nigh this, back in the early 1900's with his volume Concerning the Spiritual in Fine art.

For Kandinsky, xanthous held the audio of a shrill canary, while blue was a deep bass notation. Put the yellow in a circle and the shrill is softened, while in a triangle with its sharp angles the shrill is heightened. Like the orchestra concerts he attended in Russia back then, he felt sounds conveyed firsthand emotions and additionally held spiritual value. It was his life's work to paint using color in abstract shapes, to recreate the emotion he felt while listening to a concert.

Recently Gigi paid me a visit all excited about merely finishing a painting for her prove. She had been working on this i very intensely. She burst in saying, "I found the perfect colour – and now information technology works!" She went on nigh the many layers of color it took to reach the finale – the concluding effect, mood and feeling she was subsequently.

I was reminded of Piet Mondrian, i of our masters from the terminal century, who had been known to spend a yr on a single color of blueish. Similar stories abound about other modern masters like Marking Rothko, taking lengths of fourth dimension to obtain perfection in color. But like Gigi, they understood the value of color precision.

Colour & shape are major ways to express emotion

Nude in a Blue Room, oil on panel, xvi″ ten 12″, Gigi Mills

This painting, Nude in a Blue Room is primarily cool. (Blue colors are usually felt as a absurd temperature). Gaze at this painting and meet what type of emotion comes upwards for you. Now imagine this painting swapping out the cool blues for warm colors – similar reds or yellows. The mood would alter drastically! Gigi's paintings make frequent use of principal colors – reddish, yellow, blue. Left full forcefulness and mostly unmixed, these colors can evoke bold primal feelings.

Pairing brights with neutrals adds sophistication and a sense of mystery. Gigi's use of rich blacks and stark whites, recalls early black and white movies. Remember the mode an sometime Alfred Hitchcock mystery movie felt? Like film noir the utilize of neutrals sets us up for a larger-than-life feeling.

Colour layered over color will fine-melody emotion. Gigi often starts with a bright color, then layers over it several times to either intensify the color with more brights, or exercise the contrary and subdue it with neutrals – depending on the mood she wants to express.

Calling the Hounds, oil on canvas, 21″ x 29″, Gigi Mills

Accept a close look at the dogs in Calling the Hounds.Nosotros run across a vivid pinkish color that is notwithstanding visible, raw and sketchy, not covered over with more pigment layers. This same pinkish was also used underneath the expanse of gray background. Gigi calls this type of layering bright under quiet.

Yet Life with Blue Artichokes & Oranges, oil on lath, 17″ x 13″, Gigi Mills

In Still Life with Blue Artichokes & Oranges, the pocket-size touches of rich bright orange are encased by neutrals – those soft muted grays. A riveting focus on the orangish is like finding jewels in a treasure box.

Magic places to ponder that are easy to miss

Another attribute that creates emotion is EDGES. I'g not talking about the edges of the canvas. Instead I'one thousand referring to the place where one color shape touches some other color shape within the painting itself. The edge between shapes. This is a magic place responsible for creating emotion, just often working in our unconscious and non visibly obvious.

Calling the Hounds/Morning time, oil on panel, 12″ x xvi″, Gigi Mills

For example, here is the image in total ofCalling the Hounds/Forenoon, equally well as an enlarged detail and then we can more easily see how the edges are handled.

Detail

As I mentioned before, Gigi layers color to get the quality she wants. As each layer is applied, the overpainted color layer stops just a scrap short of covering the underlying color completely. Nosotros tin can see this best at the edges, where the layers are revealed. Check out how the orange color of the shirt doesn't quite touch the grayness background, and instead leaves a bright hairline halo. Another example is constitute with the thin line of pink betwixt the dogs' outline and the background color. These small yet stiff multi-colored places at the edge add a visual vibration to the viewing experience.

Reduce detail to increase emotion

Another aspect in painting that expresses emotion is manner and more specifically where it fits on the scale of abstract to realistic. For me, Gigi'southward work rides the line between these. Since at that place doesn't seem to be whatever universal definition for abstruse or realistic painting, for our purposes permit's say brainchild minimizes detail, while realism relies more heavily on the addition of detail.

One of Gigi'southward intentions is to show emotion without having to be totally graphic, without dotting all the i'southward. She may start with a vision, then includes merely what is essential to evoke a certain infinite or class. What is left out allows for more than viewer interpretation, to trigger our own personal response, our own experiences and stories.

A elementary horizontal line indicates where ground meets sky, or table meets wall. We see how  adeptly she uses minimal detail – just enough for recognition. The more than detail, the more the artist controls the viewing response. The less detail, the more open the painting remains for the viewer to interpret the image for themselves.  As a painting leans more towards brainchild, the image gains more energy, adding to a deeper connectedness between artist and viewer. Imperfection plays a role to create mood as well. Gigi'southward choice to elongate, exaggerate and distort forms, specially noticeable in the nudes and figures, adds a sense of the unexpected. This distortion reminds u.s.a. that being human is well-nigh existence imperfect.

What makes a successful painting?

Work that entices us to look deeply and to feel deeply. A mystery to investigate, a story to unfold, an intimate glimpse into the personal. We can analyze a painting with words, break it down into concepts, simply this volition never be the whole story. There are no formulas. Artists must constantly invent and re-invent. To use a formula means an artist doesn't accept to stay conscious in the deed, or be that raw nerve that connects them through the work to the viewer. Using a formula for production, the work loses its border and lacks spirit or soul.

Gigi calls her show Prima Materia – the base of all matter, coming from spirit or source. This title well expresses her desire for the images to get beyond their external form – the content or subject affair, be it a dog, horse, effigy – and instead allow the inner spirit to exist revealed. Another way to heighten the artist-viewer connexion.

A painting that gets our attending relies on the openness of the painter, their vulnerability, being unafraid to share their inner side, their deepest emotions. Not just share, simply bring information technology into tangible form. This daring I feel, is what makes a painter and their paintings slap-up. When the artist goes deep and feels it in their gut, the viewer tin can too. A great painting, regardless of content, way or medium, will connect the states to our experience of being man.

This is what attracts me then passionately to the work of main creative person, my friend and colleague, Gigi Mills.

Which brings us to the end of my talk.
Thank y'all for your time and attention.

Photo credits: Top photograph by Allison Holley.
All painting photos by Gigi Mills.

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Source: https://nancyreyner.com/2019/09/29/how-to-give-a-public-talk-on-your-friends-art-without-losing-your-friend/

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