justinpheapco

Some quick thoughts on the massive impact of minimalistic and abstract art.

Minimalism is the anchor to my hypercreative energy. For me, it is the twitter version of every artistic novel I write on a daily basis. For others, I have heard them describe it as a, “single moment pulled from their journey, or experience.”

Indeed, it often feels like an attempt to recreate the thinnest possible version of the thinnest possible second within an expansive and saturated memory. Then, it is a stripping of the artifacts, noise, and peripherals to reveal one thing. Ironically, we know that even one thing is made of many things: thus why minimalism is often surrounded by abstraction.

Nonetheless, minimalistic artwork forces me into clarity where I would otherwise wander; it keeps me close to my work, leaning in to see the small details magnified.

A line is never just a line: it’s a shape existing on a layer that leads us to the next color, the next element, or the next question: it’s power is in it’s connection to the whole.

Shapes –of structure or abstraction– are never just shapes: they are the scenes that speak to us of the process. They are the footprint of the artist’s journey.

Overlap, a tool often employed and rarely understood. Overlap, is a beautiful thing. Overlap is inherently spiritual and human.

Of course, my hope is for you to feel the movement and the absence of movement that created the piece; my family makes every piece that I create, because I left them in one moment and I am returning to them the next moment. We only paint or draw in between breaths: in between moments of laughter, work, crying, browsing, writing, shopping, eating, loving.

More than that, for me, my home is a constant force of beauty that informs my artwork, and my hope is that you see a small part of what I am seeing: in that, there is a connection: it is a call for humanity to wake up into the world of compassion. Oh that we would long to see what others see and search, yet, with the eyes of our heart.

This is where art’s power is translated into meaningful work.