Do you appreciate abstract art?Abstract art tends to be a polarizing art from. Either you like it and “get it” or you don’t and have no interest in even discussing it. I have received overwhelming support, encouragement, and interest in my work since I launched my art career. Every now and then, I’ll come across someone who doesn’t want to flat out tell me they don’t like my work, but they’ll pose the question, “what do you think about people who don’t think abstract art is really art?”

I guess my response in return would be,

“what do you think art is?”

Here’s what I think art is: I think that when God created humans in His image, He made them to be creators. The fact that we have imaginations and the ability to create is one way in which we are made in the image of God. We are His artwork, and He lets us be artists and creators too; no matter the career path or gifts we were given. Maybe it’s painting, music, serving others, mathematics, complex spreadsheets, medicine, it is all creation.

I think that anything that points to the glory of God and anything that is uplifting to the hope and faith in Christ is art. Anything that makes you thankful to be alive and anything that helps you enjoy God’s creation is art. I also believe that our purpose in life is to strive to that end.

Here is why abstract art, is art. Realism is indubitably art, because it is a direct reflection of people, landscapes, or objects. I think of abstract art as a more base level of God’s creation. Abstraction celebrates color, light, movement balance, shape, form among many other elements. I cannot imagine a world without these elements, and I choose to celebrate them. I cannot really imagine nothingness, because even when I picture that, there is the color black in my mind, which is the absence of light, but still a color.

Abstract art, for me, is a celebration of God’s gift of color, light, and form. When painting, I’m so thankful for color and for the ability to mix and create colors. I’m thankful that I am able to lay gold leaf into my paintings and see how the light reflects off of those golden pieces of light.

A person who only thinks realism is art is like someone appreciating the human body, but not appreciating the individual cells, muscles, and bones necessary to make that body functioning. Color, light, form, and canvas balance are the bones, the veins, and the muscles of realism. Realistic paintings rely on color, form, shape and light to be realistic. Realism is the body. Abstraction is the individual parts.

In Genesis 1:3, just after God created the heavens and the earth, He created the light and separated light from darkness. Light is made of wavelengths of color. If God took the time to make those elements individually I think that it is okay for us to take the time to appreciate those elements of light, color, and form individually. He could have made the world and all its elements and inhabitants in one fell swoop, but he chose not to.

I propose, that we can appreciate both realism, and abstraction. Both the whole and the parts that are glorifying to God because he made not only a realistic world, but he also made the individual elements that make up complete objects. He causes the light to shine and He is the master of form. Don’t be fooled, even God dabbles in abstraction in nature, like in the dying leaf, or in the plankton swirling in the sea.

phytoplankton bloom in the Baltic Sea

Be a creator and enjoy creation. If you can’t get past the big picture to enjoy the details and the elements  that make the bigger picture more beautiful, than perhaps abstraction isn’t for you; and that’s okay too. Tell me below! What are your thoughts on abstract art? I want to know.