Old but Not Dead

Abstration - to be honest is my favourite when I visit or just pass by any galleries in the city or elsewhere. It's not because I could understand what the artist draw, what concepts actually in it, just because I like to see its shapes, colors and arrangement. Everything - sometimes - turns to be clear only when I see the name below the painting.

Reading articles about Abstration Art often made me a little heady due to the explanations that do not fit with my thoughts; yet this time, a right Art article at a right moment really causes the effect. "A Retrospective of Paintings and Drawings" ( Roberta Smith Oct. 2006 - The New York Times) written about Brice Marden's Art Exhibition in New York - an abstraction artist - doubtfully inspired me in certian way of thinking about this Art sort.

Brice Marden is known as an artist that perseverely keep his own way of painting, he gained success but after a long time life chasing ambition in many places. The rhythmic motion of stucco on walls in France made him totally mesmerized. "The basic principles of his work took root: draw from the past, but use a strictly maintained physical process, express an un-Minimalist, even romantic inner life through Minimalist means" (1). "Express an un-Minimalist, even romantic inner life through Minimalist means" is exactly what he did in almost his Art works, especially the most current one as you can see below

"The Propitious Garden of Plane Image"

Ignore the name of the work that I typed in very small size on purpose and firstly try to get the meaning yourself. This is the full version of his work at the Museum of Modern Art. Interesting! At the time Neo-Pop Art currently dominates, an old drawing style with very basic shapes, lines and colours still can create new trend and receive great adoption.

It is said that he began with one single panel first and then move to two and three ... ones vertically, reapeat the theme of the work to create meaning, more powerfull and clearer in the abstraction. The article also includes many interesting facts about his use of paint brushes, colors and how this work realated in theme to “D’après la Marquise de la Solana” inspired by Goya’s portrait.

The exhibition was really successful with this painting, two long six-panels title his impressive work "The Propitious Garden of Plane Image" - the name of the painting after all.

The painting left many thoughts inside me ... We can see his sketches with long lines and different colours which evokes us about some kind of maps filled up with rivers, fields, lands, etc. All was presented on the stage of different backgrounds - Are there different situations in life, does it just simply reflect the way we see things from "top of the sky" or that's what we - different people - see life in different ways? We all see rectangular frames - continuously, lines, colours, but it's not exactly the same. Things change when we see and think differently, things you could not never ever recognise.

Another paintings:

“Untitled # 3,” by Brice Marden

"Post Calligraphic Drawing," 1998

Reference
Roberta Smith, The New York Times, 27 Oct. 2006

The Artist, viewed 28 Oct. 2006,