Abstraction: Composition
/I’ve designed myself a ten step programme over thirty days to move from Representational art into a personal language of Abstraction. To understand what I mean by that, be sure to read my blog A Language of Abstraction.
This is step seven: COMPOSITION
Through the process of drawing daily, both in my studio and on location, I have sensed my work moving in an abstract direction. I have become less attracted to capturing a single scene and wanting more to express an experience.
I lose patience with insisting on detailed, perfect drawings and am more excited by contrasting emotion, gesture and movement.
Purely by accident - or perhaps, necessity and instinct - I one day, while out “collecting shapes” on a walk, created a series of quick little sketches, turning the sketchbook in different directions as I moved from one location to another. It was a bit of a mess, created haphazardly with anxiety, but there was something about it I liked. Maybe because it was a raw expression of my experience that day: rushed, anxious and self-conscious.
Back in the studio, I could see how composition was going to play a massive role in the storytelling of my new work, not only in terms of practice but also in expressing emotion.
In these examples from some of my favourite artists it is the composition that first caught my eye.
They each push the boundary on the traditional “rule of thirds” and create something dynamic and memorable.
Artist and teacher Mitchell Albala says the artist can find their composition through asking the right questions: how do the shapes [of the subject matter] relate to one another? How do they keep the viewer engaged? How do they suggest movement?
I have looked at “collecting the shapes” as my first response to inspiration; ordering those shapes into the strongest composition that engages the viewer and suggest movement are the next questions to address.
Making small thumbnail sketches is a great way to start. Odd numbers of things tend to give a pleasing composition focus; so I’m making three collections of shapes for each piece. Working, also, with the concept of contrast and variation, I can find a number of strong compositions using the traditional templates, for example: cross, triangle, L form, grid etc.
I find these a useful tool for brainstorming ideas and trying out new things quickly.
In his book “The Landscape Painter’s Workbook”, Albala teaches that the strongest forces of a picture are the edges! The format of the painting (landscape, portrait or square), which can be an arbitrary decision for an artist, makes a significant difference to the “implied movement” within a composition.
Our eye will naturally move along the longest side, so a landscape format will imply an east to west direction of energy, along the horizon. A portrait format imposes an inward and upward movement. A square format, which I often prefer, is more confined and static, so the composition must work harder to lead the eye around the canvas.
The Abstract Expressionists pushed against the notion that a canvas needed a focal point. By the large scale of their works and their pioneering “all-over” compositions, they wanted us, by design, to feel engulfed and for our eyes to not rest in any one place for long.
This idea intrigues me and I may attempt this kind of work another time, but for now, I am more attracted to another of their influences: the surrealist French poets.
The Abstract Expressionist art movement came out of a cosmopolitan melting pot of European intellectuals and creatives who gathered in Greenwich Village New York to escape the Nazi persecution during the Second World War. They crossed paths with the American artists who were helplessly watching the cruelty of humanity unfold, wondering how their art should respond.
French poet André Bretton introduced them to “stream of consciousness” writing. With Phillippe Soupault, Bretton undertook an experiment during the First World War whereby, to process their trauma, they committed to writing anything that came to mind, very quickly, without editing, for a limited period of time, everyday. The result was their book “Magnetic Fields”, the first known work of surrealist literature.
I came across it during the first lockdown of the Covid 19 pandemic and it struck a chord with me. As Bretton sat outside a Parisian cafe in a deserted post-war street, writing down every detail that caught his eye, it felt very current, like he was describing our experience of the world reopening and gaining a new appreciation of the mundane and ordinary.
Their writing is a celebration of living from one moment to the next and it influenced the New York poets and abstract expressionists deeply! Frank O’Hara (poet and former curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York) ran with this idea and became well known for his “I did this, I did that” style of poetry. It has a similar feel to Bretton’s work and gives a leading role to the minutiae.
It is a practice I find useful during periods of anxiety which frequently strike while I’m out navigating the world, especially, inconveniently, while sketching.
I feel as though my compositions will reflect the “I went here, I went there” storyline and I want to include this element in my work.
Next up: Step eight is exploring ways to use LETTERING