The quotation of the week from Painting: The Power of Observation:
What does it mean, "abstract" ? Does it mean to abstract from something— to start with an image and transform it into essentials, like Mondrian’s tree series? Maybe it means some kind of freedom from the image so we can get directly to the serious part and not get lost in apples or nipples. Maybe it means the big idea itself— painting as physics or philosophy. Maybe it means to be purified or to be closer to concrete essences. Maybe it’s a formal design strategy with invented rules, a graphing or charting of information. There is no guarantee of freedom in abstraction ... The painter Max Gimblett says "The impulse moves between the instant and the gradual... In alertness and attention. In silence with the paint. Painting is inherently mysterious, it’s a state of being where there is no recognizable ‘Mind’..."
From Everything is Finished Nothing is Dead, an article on abstract painting by Chris Martin
Three paintings by Emil Robinson, whose work I've been looking at over the past few days:
Polar Bear Club, 2015, oil on linen, 72x96
Obannon, 2014, oil on panel, 36x48
Winter Morning 2, 2014, acrylic on paper, 16x14