Call for artists working in abstraction
I’m in the final year of my part time MFA at Nottingham Trent University and part of the module is to undertake a placement, residency, intense studio time or a research project. I’ve decided to undertake a research project, focussing on how contemporary artists working in abstraction define, develop and articulate their practice.
This is relevant to my practice at this point, a large proportion of the work I do is rooted in abstraction, about finding a magical combination of materials and processes that enables something new to be created, for me, this is rooted in the scientific or the geographical, with it about alluding to something, creating an object that suggests something beyond the surface.
This leads to a desire for understanding meaning, to being able to place a work in a space within or outside of art. Understanding the source inspiration and the external manifestation will help me to articulate my practice more clearly with artists and audiences on a deeper, and potentially, more meaningful basis. My experiences in recent years suggest that abstraction requires a balance between giving enough or not enough information for the viewer to engage with, too far removed from this ‘sweet spot’ and one risks becoming figurative/literal or devoid of meaning.
By externalising my thinking and processes and engaging with other artists working in the field of abstraction I hope to develop an understanding of what it means to be working in abstraction in the contemporary age, finding connections between inspirations, materials, processes and outcomes - partly to help me understand my own practice more, but to also celebrate the wonderfully diverse artists tackling abstraction today.
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Find out more
If you’d like to find out more about the project then visit the Re/Defining Abstraction page