MAD ABSTRACT

with poetry by Ross Vachon

Origin Latin abfrom

Latin

Latin

abstrahere

abstractus

abstract

drawn away

Middle English

Latin trahere draw off

Middle English: from Latin abstractus, literally 1. consider (something) theoretically or separately from something else. “to abstract science and religion from their historical context can lead to anachronism” 2. extract or remove (something). “applications to abstract more water from streams” 3. that which is abstract; the theoretical consideration of something. “the abstract must be made concrete by examples”

“Abstraction cannot be defined” - Urine-8

Louise Bourgeois Change the Direction of the Music Staff, 1997 Red ink on music paper 9 x 12”

“Abstraction is a language that transcends boundaries and invites the viewer to look beyond the surface of things.”

-Louise Bourgeois

The fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision of solitude. RV

Christopher Beane TBV Graffiti Gardens #12, 2023 Mixed Media 27 1/4 x 79”

Mel Bochner Head Honcho, 2020 Screenprint with color shifting ink 63 x 48” Edition of 30

Christopher Beane TBV Graffiti Gardens #2, 2022 Mixed Media 25 x 65”

Sam Francis Untitled, 1979 Lithograph 22 1/8 x 18 1/8” Edition of 100

Sam Francis Untitled, 1979 Lithograph 22 1/8 x 18 1/8” Edition of 100 Unique Color Trial Proof

“Abstraction allows us to see beyond the surface of things, to glimpse the hidden patterns and rhythms that underlie our experience of the world.”

-Sam Francis

Sam Francis Untitled, 1979 Lithograph 22 1/8 x 18 1/8” Edition of 100 Unique Color Trial Proof

“I was looking for inspiration while cursing what I thought was trash on the streets.

Many years later, Rauschenberg did the same for me. Suddenly everywhere I turned I saw the beauty in things; I saw the potential for anything to become art.”

-Charlie Hewitt

In commemoration of the fir small plane pilots flying over

Charlie Hewitt Untitled #2, 2023 Mixed media on canvas 44 x 30”

rst alien abduction - two r Bermuda.

RV

Charlie Hewitt Untitled #3, 2023 Mixed media on canvas 44 x 30”

Riddle me this...what is the missing piece to a found life? The scattershot fun of a summer afternoon? RV

Mary Heilman Geometric Spin, 2021 Archival pigment inks printed on shaped Duna board with acrylic paint 21 x 26” Edition of 30

Jay Kelly Untitled #2002, 2023 Graphite on paper 12 x 9”

Jay Kelly Untitled #2003, 2023 Graphite on paper 12 x 9”

“I’m not going to talk about my work.” A cloud of defiance as thick as the smoke of his cigar wafts over him as he dabbles solder onto a tiny metal sculpture. He never had respect for conventions, rules… not even time. Just like his obsessively labored sculptures Jay Kelly seems to move fluently through centuries. Not agreeing on the now. His pieces tell a story of yearning for a time that never existed. Like props or artifacts from a world just beyond reach - that seem all too familiar but, then again, elude understanding. This small-scale work ranges from burdened to playful. From imposing to delicate. Alone, they stand tall and proud at all but 6 inches. Together the pieces form a unity, a tiny city of sorts. Created on a small folding table in NYC, these pieces feel influenced by their surroundings. With hints of old Americana, city brutality, grace, elegance, cast away curb-side items, industrial landscapes, busted tires and washed up buoys. “I like to refine my shapes over the years. I feel like I’m getting closer to the purest forms and shapes that turn me on,” Kelly absentmindedly says about his work. “They have to have a certain weight,” he continues, now filing at tiny metal flanges. “See… I’m a tinkerer… that’s what I do”.

-Suzanne Levesque

Jay Kelly Untitled #2005, 2023 Graphite on paper 12 x 9”

Jay Kelly Untitled #2006, 2023 Graphite on paper 12 x 9”

Jay Kelly Untitled #561, 2023 Metal and enamel paint 8 x 3 x 2 1/4”

Jay Kelly Untitled #552, 2023 Metal, Japanese paper, archival glue, wood, gesso, and acrylic 8 1/4 x 3 1/4 x 3”

Don Kimes Disintegrating Orange, 2019 Acrylic and ink on paper on canvas 14 x 11”

Don K Heat Ma Acrylic and ink on 14 x

The birth pangs of

Kimes ap, 2021 n paper on canvas x 11”

f planet earth. RV

Don Kimes The One That’s Not Denied, 2021 Acrylic and ink on paper on canvas 14 x 11”

“Abstraction falls off when it becomes categorized or formulaic. That’s the point where it can be explained. I’m not talking about quality here. I’m talking about rules, formulas, and the ability to “get it”. That’s where it turns into nice decoration – furniture. That’s where abstract art goes to die, but that can be said of anything. Jerry Saltz called it ‘Zombie Formalism’. He gave a talk at American University and one thing I remember is that he quoted Oscar Wilde: “The moment you think you understand a great work of art, it’s dead for you.” That’s true no matter what kind of work we’re talking about.”

-Don Kimes

The Peloponnesian War Moving images by Thuc

ar as seen from space. cydides.

RV

Don Kimes Monolith 2, 2023 Has inverted blue L on the right, acrylic and ink on paper 22 1/4 x 18 1/2”

“In abstraction, the artist creates a grammar of form, color, and line that allows for infinite possibilities.”

-Sol Lewitt

What am I? What have I hoped for?

How have I lived?

RV

Sol Lewitt Lines in Four Directions, 1991 Gouache on paper 11 x 29”

Rafa Macarron Untitled, 2017 Mixed media on iron 21 1/8 x 21 1/8”

My autobiography: FISHING IN THE RED CREEK FOR THE UNATTAINABLE AND INELUCTABLE. RV

Jerry Mischak Delivery Room, 2023 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20”

Jerry Mischak The Map, 2023 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20”

I feel the trembling ghost of Magoo.

Red Alert At 5A Highly Flammable Dreams.

“Real is what we see, but abstraction is how we interpret it -Jerry Mischak

AM. What’s happened to our reckoning hopes.

RV

Jerry Mischak Unpredictable, 2023 Acrylic on canvas 20 x 20”

David Mitchell Perihelion Collage 01, 2022 Archival pigment print 48 x 48” Edition of 10

“Abstract art is an expression of that which lies beyond our grasp. It works obliquely and subliminally, and when it achieves its aim it delivers up the seemingly unknowable— tantalisingly close and familiar.”

-David Mitchell

Skipping rocks in the creek.

Ripples of renown.

RV

“Abstraction is a never-ending journey of discovery, a way of continually pushing the boundaries of what is possible.”

-Elizabeth Murray

Elizabeth Murray Shoe String, 1993 Three-dimensional lithograph in 21 colors 40 3/4 x 33 3/4 Edition of 70

Susan Oehme Don’t Warp the Vellum, 2021 Watercolor monoprint 28 x 33”

A Coney Island Of The Psyche, bumper car rodomontade. RV

“When I am painting, everything feels my abstract modular forms and like th tools of expression. Using the power o is filled with exuberance and love.”

Jacob Ouillette Side Bar, 2023 Oil on canvas 45 x 31”

s right in the universe. I have he keys on a piano these are my of intention, every stroke of paint -Jacob Ouillette

Jacob Ouillette Mini Bar, 2023 Oil on canvas 45 x 33 1/2”

The Death Of The Age Of Aquarius. Years Of Hope, Days Of Rage in a deep freeze of possibility, of promise, of potential. RV

Jenna Pirello 3 AM, 2023 Acrylic paint on wood 60 x 42”

From left to right clockwise: Sugar Boy II, 13 x 12”; Sugar Boy, 17 x 12”; Strange Overtones, 16 x 20”; Sugar Boy, 16 1/2 x 12”; Juices, 18 x 16 1/2”; Moonbeam, 14 3/4 x 12 1/8”; Taste Test, 15 1/2 x 12”; Take the Flowers, 16 x 12”

Jenna Pirello Ice Cold, 2022 Acrylic paint on wood 50 x 42”

Jenna Pirello I Bet it Stung, 2022 Acrylic paint on wood 50 x 42”

Fred Sandback Untitled, 1990 Monoprint 29 3/4 x 22 1/4”

“In abstract art, space, light, and color become the subject, rather than the object being represented.”

-Fred Sandback

Chris Santa Maria No. 5, 2014 Paper collage and acrylic on MDF Approximately 58 x 60”

Chris Santa Maria Field 13, 2022 Paper collage on 4-ply ragboard 20 x 30”

“The more and more I think about the core of what abstraction really is, the deeper I fall into a realm that seems to be overwhelmingly mysterious and inexplicable by its very nature. It feels like that Richard Feynman quote about quantum mechanics, but with the terms switched around: “If you think you understand abstraction, you don’t understand abstraction.” Anyways, I can’t remember who said it, maybe it was Brice Marden, but abstraction is difficult because it’s abstract!”

-Chris Santa Maria

“The noise [around me] is more responsible for my personal paintings than my design work because it is all amalgamated into the information I paint onto these maps. My design work [in comparison] is reductive.”

-Paula Scher

Paula Scher Sandy, 2023 Acrylic on canvas

“The geometric forms of the most effective means ture of truth in art.”

Frank Stella Polar Co-Ordinates Variant IA, 1980 Lithograph and screenprint 38 1/2 x 29 1/2” Edition of 20

f minimalism provide s of exploring the na-Frank Stella

Frank Stella Eskimo Curlew From Exotic Bird Series, 1977 Lithograph and screenprint 33 9/10 x 45 7/10” Edition of 50

“I generate my ideas through emotional responses, communicating those concepts with abstract shapes, lines, and color.”

-Catherine Shuman Miller

Catherine Shuman Miller Nuts & Bolts, 2021 Oil and watercolor monoprint

“The basis of abstract art is the resistance which the spectator experiences when confronted with what he cannot recognize, when he is not able to identify the object with which he is confronted. The experience of abstract art is not so much an encounter with the unknown as it is an encounter with an experience which cannot quite be articulated. It is the representation of the unknown, the unseeable, the unnameable, and yet it is also the representation of the most fundamental aspects of human experience: the struggle to make sense of the world, to find meaning and to establish order. Throughout the history of art, artists have sought to confront the unknown and to give it form and meaning.

Abstract art is one of the most powerful expressions of this quest, and it continues to inspire and challenge audiences today.”

-Cy Twombly

Untit

Cy Twombly tled (from on the Bowery), 1971 Screenprint 25 1/2 x 25 1/2” Edition of 100

Jim Watt Untitled, 2023 Oil on canvas

“With abstract painting it’s often a question of when it’s finished.

For me a painting is finished when it feels like me. Having said that, I have no idea what ‘Me’ is or feels like. Every move made on a painting is an attempt to solve this elusive problem. This process invariable challenges the relationship between subject and object.

Am I making the the painting or is the painting making me.”

-Jim Watt

“Abstraction is a way of celebr complexity of the world, by u patterns and rhy

Stanley Whitney Untitled, 2019 Silkscreen on Lanaquarelle 24 1/2 x 32”

rating the beauty and unveiling its hidden ythms.”

- Stanley Whitney

Stanley Whitney Untitled, 2016 Sugar lift aquatint,open bite, spit bite, line etching 29 1/8 x 32 1/8” Edition of 18

Stanley Whitney Untitled, 2021 Monoprint in watercolor & Crayon 23 3/4 x 23 3/4”

Stanley Whitney Untitled, 2021 Monoprint in watercolor & Crayon 23 3/4 x 23 3/4”

Abstract art is the temporal paradox of our time. It is point, line, image, representation, it is the Peloponnesian War, World War I, World War II, the subconscious, the irrational, the stuff of dreams, nightmares, an empiricism of imagery through optics, color, patterns. A pleasurable sense of depth from the elusiveness of the meaning. A radical spiritualism in service to form itself not only the content the work of art represents. RV