Ian's Challenge - August - Red Yellow Blue

My interest in art happened autonomously. Art did not play a major role growing up at home. There were more important things to think about and do. Art was superfluous. It contributed nothing to surviving in the world. Yet, I was drawn to it. Not because of the subject matter so much, rather the emotional and conceptual response it evoked.

Yellow – Red – Blue is a triptych created from 3 landscape photographs. The images were altered in Photoshop. The idea here was to begin with an easily recognized image and transform it into an abstract piece of art using a specific set of rules to conform to. Cézanne and the Impressionists began by exploring color. It began a reactionary conduit for art to follow. Since then, group after group of artists have continued to question the idea of what art is. By reacting to preceding schools of thought, art expanded its boundaries and in turn enriched our interaction with it.

Piet Mondrian was one of the most influential artists to challenge my awareness of art. He is well known for his paintings of black horizontal and vertical lines painted on a white background and restricted use of the three primary colors. By doing so, it allowed for basic elements of line, shape, color, and form to become the primary subject matter of a painting. There was no need for a subject anymore; it permitted for a pure, metaphysical, emotional, and primal response in making art.

Abstract Expressionism explored these ideas further. Painters of that school included Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Clifford Still, and David Smith. Their persistent pursuit to follow their urge in making their art broadened its language. The spontaneous and theoretical approach to making art not only generated new techniques and processes; it freed artists to explore art with a more personal, physical and psychological response to his work and the environment he lives in.

This piece attempts to reiterate these ideas.