Abstraction for me is the necessary engagement, a digging deeper, when encountering a scene or situation. To come to grips with it. Just as music does not have any visual device to show you what a passage is about, yet every one of us conjures up a vision, an interpretation of what it is about. Similarly the artwork I create, when it is entirely abstract, still has a subject, a feeling, a need to express an essence (a truth or a spirit if you will).
To my mind it is more in line with the visual tools at my disposal to express something about the “wolfiness” of a wolf that I may have had the good fortune to have glimpsed in the wild – than simply try to sketch a wolf (and granted it would not be all that simple to do that either). Nevertheless, a picture of a wolf simply is (and if it does not match your idea of a photograph of one, it leaves you all critical and judgmental – not nice). An abstract expression of a wolf allows me and you, requires of you, some creative engagement – hopefully elicits a response, a feeling. That’s what I like to share. Because then it allows us to have a conversation -and that is what art is all about!