Communication - a demo painting

Communication
(completed demo painting)

 Painting Purposeful Abstracts, Demonstration for the Fort Wayne Artists Guild; Brenda will be presenting and demonstrating her methods and techniques for painting abstract paintings with meaning. She will focus on ideas to help traditional painters produce successful abstract paintings using tools and concepts they already use. 

Last week was my opportunity to give a demonstration and talk about doing abstract paintings for my fellow artists in Fort Wayne. I really enjoyed it! I loved seeing the smiling, engaged faces in the audience and fielding the questions. It had been a while since I had done any public speaking as such. The moderator introduced me as an artist who "paints in poetry", which I thought was a lovely expression! 

Interestingly, the concept I painted for my demo fits right in with the way I was presenting my work. I had asked the audience to help me decide what I would be painting by choosing a word or phrase that would be difficult to paint. There were many good ideas, and I chose either communication or connection - sadly, I cannot remember which word it was! I felt that both of these ideas are closely connected and would be well represented by the composition made up of curves. (I will let you know when the taped version of the presentation becomes available and you can check up on which word it should be!)

12" x 12"

Painted with artist quality heavy-body acrylic paint on 1.5” deep gallery wrapped canvas

Edges painted black

Click here to view or purchase on my website.

Many of the choices in this work were very deliberate, and were focused on teaching things about how I paint. But, as sometimes happens, I see more in the finished work than the concepts communicated by the conscious choices I had made. I think it is fairly clear that I was indicating many ideas and 'selves' as I painted, and I worked to make them interact with one another in different ways. This is an obvious part of connection and communication. I can also see, though, that some of the curves shut off others. Some block out others and it requires especially sharp and deliberate marks to pierce through the hard edges. 

This makes me think of how God, the Creator of the universe, communicates with humanity using nature, through His Word the Bible, and especially by His Son Jesus, Who pierced through our darkness by becoming one of us. This poetic section from the New Testament communicates this beautifully:

John 1:14 The Word became flesh

and took up residence among us.

We observed His glory,

the glory as the One and Only Son from the Father,

full of grace and truth.