In all honesty, I find abstract – aka nonrepresentational – art to be the hardest to engage in. You have yourself a blank canvas and … what is it exactly you’re supposed to achieve by placing paint on it? Nonrepresentationally, that is.
I’m sure that there are as many answers to this just posed question as there are walks of life. I myself prefer that which I once heard many, many years back from an art aficionado – boisterously expressing his views on this matter to others – this while I was visiting the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Here paraphrasing his opinion: Take any piece of abstract art and observe it for at least five minutes or so and, as you gaze, you will find yourself becoming affected – not by anything directly represented but, instead, by the emotive gut reactions you acquire (often more subconsciously than not) from the shapes, colors, and lines before you. In so affecting you, nonrepresentational art in fact does convey – and, in this sense, represent – something: an emotive state of being which is largely caught on canvas.
Now, while I classify this one painting as abstract art, I couldn’t help but imbibe into it a faint representation of a masquerade ball’s mask. Hence the title.
As to how it was made: The canvas was partly pulled off its bars, cut to the desired forms, covered with wood glue on the backside to maintain its shape, then oil painted. A hand built partial frame was then attached to the work to complete it – elevating the painting off the wall by a few inches and, in so doing, greatly adding to the sense of depth via the various shadows produced.
- Title: A Masquerade’s Momentum
- By: Michael W Moiceanu
- Size: 24.5″ width x 13.5″ height x 3.5″ depth
- Paints: Oils
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Michael W Moiceanu 