My Axioms

An abstract painting is not an idea, nor is it devoid of ideas.

Nicholas Krushenick, “Outspan,” 1968, Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 72 inches

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An abstract painting is not solely an object, nor can it be separated from its object-ness.

Pat Steir, “Green, Gold and Umber” 2009-10, Oil on canvas, 60 1/2 x 51 in.

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An abstract painting does not depict, nor does it turn its back on the world.

Norman Bluhm, “Aegean Angel,” 1988, oil on canvas, 66 x 66 inches

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An abstract painting is a node among the threads of our bodily and interior experience.

Joan Snyder, “Are Mine,” 2010, Oil acrylic, glitter, rosebuds and burlap on panel, 30 in. x 30 in.

Symbiosis

Paul Cézanne, Bend in a Road in Provence, about 1866 or later, oil on canvas, 92.4 x 72.5 cm, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, Adaline Van Horne Bequest

“The painter can do no more than construct an image; he must wait for this image to come to life for other people. When it does, the work of art will have united these separate lives; it will no longer exist in only one of them like a stubborn dream or a persistent delirium, nor will it exist only in space as a colored piece of canvas. It will dwell undivided in several minds, with a claim on every possible mind like a perennial acquisition.”

From “Cézanne’s Doubt” (pdf) by Maurice Merleau-Ponty