Tony Magar
Thoughts About Abstraction
Abstract art is learning how to personally explore the unlimited, somewhat like having a love affair. So, I have been excited about this form that’s been kicking around in the back of my brain for some time. Today it starts compelling me to put it on paper.
Then the acid test is, this idea or form has to have some meaning for me. A deeper response is necessary even in its raw state. It’s got to talk back to me; a dialogue has to begin.
It has to have a statement about the way I think and feel about my world. Whether this idea or form was influenced by music, poetry or daily drama still remains somewhat of a mystery to me. Abstract art is not about having some personal emotional spasm and throwing paint around, as some critics would have us believe. It’s about exploring and inventing new concepts.
A response to a piece of music is very powerful for me in evoking form’s color and feeling, and the door of love and passion it can open. I remember one night in New York City, looking up at Coltrane playing and realizing he wasn’t playing the music, he was the music. I also find this in Mozart, this wonder and yearning, the longing to reach a higher complex form of expression. It’s a romantic notion to me.
Abstract art has always been like coming home to me….a place where I can feel free to expand my inner thoughts, a place to invent. The void that once disturbed me has now become my home and friend. Once I get free to enter the world, I can start to develop and explore a vocabulary with the painting. Having this dialog with the work is very important in reaching some meaning for me. This process encompasses a mystery and surprise that I always love – and undiscovered country..
