What do you mean by abstraction?

The category of Abstract Expressionism does exist.

In Paris which reigned as the center of the art, avant-garde movements such as Cubism, Futurism, Surrealism, and Abstractioni emerged after the 19th century,which completely departed from the style of the Renaissance and beyond,we were born.

The Abstract Expressionists were most influenced by Surrealism.

Surrealism is “surrealism. It means a view of Abstract expressionism it is not a conscious view of the world that can be seen and captured by the eye, but a view of the world that people hold in their unconscious, and it was like the expression of this view evolved into minimalism, and it is okay if you don’t understand it well! That’s what happened.

The former is represented by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline, while the latter is represented by Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Robert Motherwell, Ellsworth Kelly, Josef Albers, and others.

I wrote this for reference, but categorization in terms of art history, well, it doesn’t matter, my interest is not there, but I am attracted to “the place where abstraction dwells”.

The“GEO : Teppei Soutome Exhibition” is currently being held at Art cruise gallery.
His works are classified as abstract expressionism of color field paintings?

Teppei Soutome : Shape of reminiscence #1 (Photo by Satoshi Nagare)

Minimalistic, abstract and geometric.
I really like this work.

This work, although I understand it to be abstract, is made of regular circles and squares,
In a figurative sense, it has a proper concreteness.

So what is abstract about it?
What did you paint? What do you want to express? Is it because I don’t know what it is that I .

But I understand that they are regular circles and squares. Maybe we accept them only as elements, and we want concrete meaning by them.
But a regular circle and a square are fine concrete objects.

There, I feel that we should face not the abstraction of a painting work, but the abstraction within ourselves. I think this is a good idea.

Whenever geometric forms such as regular circles and squares are present in our daily lives, they have some function or role.

For example, logos, flags, traffic lights, switches, agar, tofu, tires, the sun, CDs, bottle lids, balls, dice, Rubik’s cubes, clocks, telescopes, magnifying glasses, etc., to name a few.

When people encounter an incomprehensible regular circle and square, they unconsciously try to find a function.
And the answer is not in the picture.
I believe that abstraction in the works of Teppei Soutome is located within the viewer.
In other words, it is something that enjoys a diversity of emotions that differ depending on the viewer.
The work itself is “concrete” to say it without fear of misunderstanding, so I think that “the place where abstraction dwells” is my rule of thumb.

Josef Albers and Ellsworth Kelly are two of my favorite masters.
It is also true that I feel there is a common thread between the works of those two artists and Soutome’s work,
It is not a complicated art theory, but about “the place where abstraction dwells.

Josef Albers is famous for his gradations of squares,
Undeniably, they have the concreteness of a series of squares.
He has not escaped by blurring the expression.

Josef Albers: Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art exhibit (from Taka Kawachi FB)

Ellsworth Kelly is similarly, and this work proudly embraces the concreteness of the fan shape (one-fourth of a regular circle). There is no escape at all.

Ellsworth Kelly: Catalog page (from Taka Kawachi FB)

The work of these two artists is also classified as abstract expressionism in color field painting, but that is not important.

Both bring about the viewing experience of something feels off due to abstraction derived from the viewer’s empirical knowledge.
But the expressions are concrete. Very much so.

The allegory that is spun from what the viewer of the work gains from “seeing” it,
I feel that if there is a way to feed back to the artists, we can see the next stage.
Then, it should be transformed into an allegory of creation. 、、、、

I am interested in what is incomprehensible becoming existentially possible.

What I find most interesting at the moment is the skeleton space I have created before the exhibition.
It is a space with nothing but possibilities, where the work will be displayed in the future.
It is a space in a very uncertain state, but it is a very concrete situation with a square box and a bent wall, but if nothing is displayed, it is very interesting. It is very interesting to see the feeling of “What in the world is this?

I think its interest is “possibility”.
I feel that in the Soutome works as well.

There is an allegory there between seeing and creating.

Cenography before acg exhibit

Allegory is a technique of expression that makes abstract things concrete, and is mainly used in the expressive arts such as painting, poetry, and writing. (wikipedia)