New Works 2010

The Play of The Abstract.

Abstract art works do not try to establish goodness or badness. The notions of good and bad have long been critiqued within the environment of art and art history – avant-garde words when understood as a progressive rather than as mutation  for example are inadequate and political when it comes to defining or authorizing an object or image as art. The abstract work presented here are art because of their link to the events of their art historical past and their assimilation and transformation in the present. Abstract expressionist art historical links include the materials used, the exhibition format and the history of the abstract in art. 

As and abstract expressionist  I consider myself an artist, because I have been authorized as one through my historical past and because what I make has historically been established as art . 

When I make art, I believe that I am not making something that has been untouched and untainted by history, culture or any social issues. Art for me cannot be made in a void. I cannot make something that is remote, isolated new, and pure; I am making something from the assimilation of the pluralistic materials and discursive terrains of the past in the present and in turn it becomes a thing in itself, fresh and original.

As an abstract expressionist art I am completely involved in the seduction of the abstract materiality and possibility of thinking differently about art – that is visual form and image – and the discourses associated with visual forms. To think differently does not preclude the new, nor does it bring about the death of what we have know as art in the past, or for that matter the notion of art itself. Rather to think differently expands, assimilated, plays with form, re-arranges, re-orders, re-structures, re-creates, the visual pattern of visual form. To think differently mixes up, shakes up the rules and order surrounding the game of art and what art is and has been. The invitation to play, to re-create and to re-order, the forms in this work generate ruptures, interruptions in the forms that are understood as art and further sketch additional notions of transgression for the art from and reality. 

I would like for the viewer to imagine their own story regarding these visual forms, which, is why I hesitate to name my works. While I do at times name my abstract works, my names are created to be playful and fun and are not set in stone. For, I believe there should to be no preset plan for the viewer to have when viewing the art, nor should the viewer worry about where to begin, or which way is up on the painting. The viewer will be linking their thoughts to mine and what they have seen. By allowing the viewer to create their own story the work becomes eternal and constantly changes the abstract work is like life itself, complex and abstract.                  

    I have a desire and need to paint; it is what I am supposed to do.

Christine Alfery