In the middle of September, the RAL Art Center will have a member’s only exhibit of abstract art.

I am not an abstract artist, but while a student at VCU in the early 1980s, that is very much all that was taught in the fine arts department. The idea was to push the boundaries past what was currently considered “art.” I just could not buy into it and eventually dropped out of the program, changed my major and changed schools. So, having studied it for two years willingly or not, I did learn a thing or two about the concept.

So, for the sake of participation and good sportsmanship, I decided to give this exhibition a try (I have skipped it the last two years).

So, at least for now, here is what I’m planning to enter:

As with most of my stuff, it’s tiny: 5X7″ The idea I was pursuing, successfully or not, was to take a very organic scene — in this case the swamp land just a short kayak ride up the creek where I live — and fractionated it trying to preserve the values, capture the underlying color (or chroma) if not the actual local colors, and basically still apply acceptable compositional tools while simplifying everything to basic mark making. I was also trying to keep the paint strokes fairly pure.

This one will be signed on the back. Not that I’m trying to hide my identity, I just don’t want a signature to distract from all the existing distractions of the fractionation.

The photos, unfortunately, have a bit of glare due to a lack of natural light available today and the paint still being very wet.

Below are a couple of close-ups: