A CODE OF THE EXISTENTIAL

Sushma Sabnis

The true essence of an abstract painting lies in its balance to reveal or conceal the act of it’s creation, without making it feel like a jigsaw puzzle. Embedded layers reflect the mind scape of the artist, translating into the landscape of the actual work, the coming together of silent intensity of thoughts, senses, skill and an intuitive cognizance which binds it all into a blessed union. Intuition, often dismissed as ‘quack-ability’, when seen as an archiving of collective timeless occurrences acts as a cognitive device, rendering the active mind a witness or a passive participant more than a contributor to this appening. Hence, one would find an abstractionist unable to articulate the actual process or have any explanation as to why a certain colour was applied only in the third wash or what a piece of bling means in that artwork. It is often taken for granted that abstract art is to be ‘felt’ more than deciphered, but to oust all of it for its ambiguity of creation would be a loss too. An intuition aided art practice is done in full and complete awareness of a much deeper level than what the active mind omprehends. This would not be a loss of control by the artist, in fact it refers to creation in absolute awareness which surpass the stimulus of mere sensorial conduits to the act. It also refers to the numerous internal contributing factors which aid the expression. The analogy that comes to mind would be of how a thought hops from one to the other when in conversation with a group of people.