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I grew up in a household where realistic art was greatly appreciated and abstract art was considered uninspired gibberish on canvas.  In my teen years I fell in love with Picasso's cubist works and from there I started to gain an appreciation for abstract art.  As time went by I got involved with a group of painters and met Lois Kirkwood, who has been painting over 40 years.  Her abstract works are wonderful.

Lois describes her paintings as "landscapes of the mind".  She focuses on texture and color and her paintings are the purest form of abstract with no identifiable objects.  When I first saw her work I was in awe of the wonderful shapes and colors and felt that painting that way must be very, very difficult.

These paintings are two of my favorites among Lois's work.  The textures in the painting on the left are marvelous with raised areas of paint and the colors are like jewels.  The piece on the right brings to my mind ocean waves pounding on rocks along the Oregon Coast.  I would be proud to hang either of these paintings in my home.  You can see more of Lois's works at http://www.jordanswain.com/kirkwood/

Pablo Picasso  was born Pablo Ruiz y Picasso in Malaga, Spain in 1881 but lived most of his adult life in France.  He was very talented in many areas and was known as a sculptor, playwright, poet, ceramicist, etc. as well as a painter.  His painting career took him through many phases, but my favorite is his cubist phase.  When I was a teenager I bought a cheap print of "The Three Musicians" and it hung in my room, then my apartment for several years.

I always felt this painting was fun and colorful and added life to my bland apartment wall space.  I still enjoy this style of painting.

A couple of other abstract artists I would like to mention are Willem de Kooning and Wassily Kandinsky.    Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American who's life spanned from 1904 to 1997.  His style of painting is known as abstract expressionism.  His statement "The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absured point of view, I think.  All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves." is interesting because de Kooning was an alcoholic, which influences how much order we can achieve in our lives.  Despite the alcoholism he was a prolific painter that receive numerous awards and honors.  As time progressed in his career his paintings evolved from the, what I call messy, biomorphic lines of his early paintings to to sparse and clean paintings.

These two examples of de Kooning's works show the evolution of his style; the later paintings being almost graphic in nature.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866 - 1944) was  a trained musician who also taught law and economics, didn't begin the study of art until he was in his 30s. He had an obsession with the works of Monet, which caused him to investigate his own ideas about color and form on canvas.  He had no problems in art school and emerged as a an art theorist as well as a painter.   He is credited as being one of the founders of pure abstraction in the early 20th century.  Kandinsky's paintings are full of color and form.

These Kandinsky works are appealing to me because of the geometric forms, as well as the wonderful colors.

I hope you have enjoyed this small look into the world of abstract art.  I included one of my own works to show another side to abstract work, as well.  Take some time to visit a gallery in your area to see what wonderful artworks are available in your area.

Until next time...........................