Context
While cameras can capture every miniscule detail of an image, a painting cannot and so becomes a medium of expression where details will be sacrificed. The camera allows one to crop an image and build a context. There is a focus, there is a background and both balance by creating depth. In painting, that depth must be imitated by matching values and shadows, by layering painting, and by varying the direction and texture of the applied paint.
Mutual Tension, 2020. Oil on canvas.
Subject
Being able to identify the subject matter of a painting becomes part of its significance. There is a spectrum of abstraction in images. Objects can be familiar and easy to recognize, or the image can be entirely nonobjective and abstract to where no thing is identifiable (a good example would be Mark Rothko). Most times it can fall somewhere in the middle, somewhat ambiguous. These are often the most engaging artworks, especially in painting where you can witness the paint tricking your eye (Max Ernst exercises this well) .
The eye sometimes sees multiple forms or ideas in a single images. Like Mandelbrot and Rorschach patterns that emerge from the manifestation of a random act, seemingly unrelated things like brush marks or splotches have a relation to each other and the whole. Our natural tendency of pareidolia allows our imagination to see images in the abstract or obscure.
Style
By focusing on each brushstroke at a time, the paint allows for beautiful patterns of direction, color and texture. When markings share similarities but also vary and have differences such as size, they can compliment each other and bring the whole image into clarity. Our eyes do the same exercise of making sense of information from our surroundings, the paint only mimics the light patterns necessary to convince the brain that those objects follow logical patterns of light that hold up to the real thing.
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