Shades of Green

Pear 2

Organic Abstraction

Pear 3

Pear 1

Pear 4

The Pear series was an experiment. It started with a simple pear on a table that I did a charcoal pencil sketch of. From there I had the idea to explore the image from abstraction to realism. But there are two types of abstraction: geometric and organic. Geometric abstraction is about a more mathematical approach distilling forms down to hard geometric shapes. In tis series I chose the square, first doing a painting with just green squares, somewhat like Ad Reinhart in his blue and black paintings. From there I painted the pear in a pixel style like a low resolution digital photo.

Organic abstraction is more painterly and free flowing, using organic shapes and brushstrokes. I followed both paths to a more photorealistic final painting of this same pear image.

Each of these paintings alone aren’t much, but together they form an exploration of how we see and process images in various ways as artists. It’s a pity they can only be seen together online since different people have bought most of these.

Which one is your favorite?

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