Some Concepts of Abstract Painting

This thesis attempts to present some philosophical and aesthetic concepts of the artist with regard to contemporary American abstract painting, and in terms of the artist&rsquo;s own creative work. Ten paintings, five of which are thesis paintings, have been used to illustrate the written portion of the thesis. Although abstract art is firmly rooted in the art of the past and has integrated and synthesized various art movements (particularly Expressionism and Abstraction), it is definitely a direct expression resulting from modern thought and forces. Formal art movements have been integrated to the extent that they can no longer be recognized as such. Contemporary American artists seem to express and abstract intuitively; their work may be said to have origins in such art movements as German Expressionism and Cubism, but now contains no conscious relationship to them. The thesis paintings are experimental and exploratory. They aim toward a dynamic and vital expression, and a communication of individual responses through a visual organization of the painting experience. A new reality results, which has as its stimulus the personal reactions of the artist to her environment; and the value of the completed paintings is the communication of those reactions through their artistic resolution in terms of plastic form, spatial tensions and stylistic concepts. The thesis paintings have been analyzed with reference to the contemplative periods of intellectual organization which have been accomplished through study of various aspects of contemporary American abstract painting and through individual creative exploration.</p