Hannah Jones/Winonan
Abstract art is first and foremost associated with controversy.
Some see it as pure expression; a high art form, the essence of creativity without the constraining molds of representation or conventional media. Others see it as a pipe cleaner glued to a piece of canvas that someone could have only left in a museum by mistake. Whatever your view on abstract art, it seldom fails to captivate, even if only for some, a moment of utter confusion.
For the past week, Watkins Hall has been home to the abstract exhibit, “Abstrunkt”, a collection of colorful, mind-bending pieces that can really only be described with any certainty as “abstract.”
The three artists on display, Carla Knopp, Naomi Lubin and Vincent Hawkins, each have their own unique contributions to the twisted, slippery world of abstract art. The gallery opens to a large display of jagged, suggested letters made of paint and cardboard, spelling out the exhibit’s name in unfamiliar shapes and seldom-used materials. The sign is an appropriate introduction to the world within, where Knopp, Lubin and Hawkins’ art scream and sing and befuddle from all sides in a manic collusion of paint, paper and yes, pipe cleaners.
Knopp’s pieces consist of several works of acrylic on wood. Each piece is a warped, curving cutout, splashed, patterned and swirled with color, all at once delicately intricate and ruthlessly messy. The shapes of the pieces disorient the viewer, stretching the mind’s eye to accommodate so unfamiliar a canvas after years of gazing upon regular rectangles and ovals sitting neatly in frames. Knopp, in her description, said the shapes were “deliberately staging an awkward proposal” to the viewer.
Very few of the pieces offer any hint as to what that proposal represents. This is natural for abstract art, which, according to Knopp’s specifications, is not meant to portray anything the artist has ever seen in real life. “I try to create visual images that are different from anything I already know or imagine,” she wrote. In this way, the art is a form all its own.
However, every so often, there is a suggestion of meaning. “Porthole,” a black, round work with an intricate flowing pattern in blue at its center, evokes a split-second recognition of water, perhaps from a window on a deep-sea vessel or an ocean liner. “Life After 50” is a piece in red with a dark, organic mass rupturing and pluming clouds of wounded magenta and crimson. The shape and color subtly bring the viewer’s mind to the internal trauma of the change of life, of aging and menopause. The titles work in tandem with the pieces, creating a glimmer of shared meaning between the artist and the viewer … or perhaps just a different meaning for all who look on it.
“It left a lot for me to determine in my own mind,” a visitor comment read in the guestbook. Arguably, that is the defining factor of the abstract. From the cotton pompoms and glitter bedecking Lubin’s various small canvases to the crazily bent cardboard fixtures of Hawkins, very few viewers are likely to come away with the same interpretation. There is one thing, however, that many can agree on: “Makes me want to get messy,” another comment read.
However you feel about abstract art, the theory behind it is universal. Abstract art does not mimic: it creates. It does not represent; it deconstructs. The vivid, warped works in Watkins are in themselves concentrated ideas rather than established shapes. For some of us, that makes them beautiful, meaningful and elegant. For others, it makes them still just a pipe cleaner glued to a canvas. Either way, we all come away having seen something different.
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