Abstract Art Analysis 22

Ethereal Transcendence, Absolute Fiction, and Glownoise

Mar 29, 2024

Welcome to AAA 22!

This is one of those weeks where a theme didn’t emerge from my findings, which is perfectly fine. Each of these works had an instant visceral effect on me, whether it be from high activity or a moment of tranquility. I had a lot of fun digging into the visual mechanics of each one. I hope you enjoy spending some time with them as well.

Content:

Art:
- ‘Ethereal Transcendence in the Abyss of Consciousness’ by sonofstag
- ‘Absolute fiction’ by Aempatia
- ‘Glownoise landscape I’ by Lucy Benson
Other Cool Things: Atelier’s latest event, ‘Under Neith’, Peter Bauman’s new article, and Iannis Xenakis

‘Ethereal Transcendence in the Abyss of Consciousness’ by sonofstag

First impression:

This piece easily grabbed my attention with aesthetic features I tend to love. On the surface, it's the contrast, loudness, and violence in the black markings among bright colors. There’s a lot of activity. It’s alive. At the same time, there’s this stone look, or plaster-like texture in the digital paint that feels heavy and stationary. This adds a lot grit to the piece. My guess is that it was painted in Rebelle as the artist has mentioned this to be the main source of other works.

Front and off-center are two lines that slash in cross formation like fast physical gestures. One is dark and prominent as likely the first element you’ll notice due to its location and the way it stems from the largest area of black that grounds the entire work. The other starts at the top and is short lived with a sharp cutoff after only an inch, yet its work is not finished as it points the way forward to create an invisible line suggested by the semi-even placement of black spots in its trajectory.
We get a power-of-three happening in the clusters of black that create a general balance just left of center upon an overview of the canvas. The largest and darkest area that sits at the right and bottom of the piece holds the most weight and helps to counter the second darkest area at the top left.
There is a hard line that separates much of the material in the area on the left. It almost has a collage feel to it, but is tied in with the rest by common elements and a sort of ‘hole’ in the middle that brings in some of the white.
These markes resemble bullet holes, which assists the impression of concrete, an effect further confirmed by the greys. They act as another violent gesture that adds more dimension and action in a 3D sense rather than only two-dimensionally across the top of the canvas. These are scattered across the canvas and extended by other small plain black dots.
Another element that grabs attention upon first look is the bright blue paint splatter. This adds to the initial central focus and extends across the entire piece. I particularly like the small bit up in the top left corner that helps tie in that, otherwise, very different section of the piece.

Collect or bid on the piece.

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‘Absolute fiction’ by Aempatia

First impression:

This caught my attention with its unusual style. There’s a lot of movement and, of course, the contrast of bright read splatters on black and white always stand out. It actually took me quite a while to realize this was a person’s head glitched and stretched. I saw it as purely abstract for the first few moments, captured mostly by what I thought was just a cloud-like figure with a dark similarly-curved jagged line in the center. Then the eyes and facial features appeared and the suit suddenly took shape.

I have never seen anything quite like this. I appreciate the unique combination of glitch, collage, and paint, as well as the allusion to a polaroid picture. I don’t know why there is a man in a suit placed in the ocean, or why he’s the only thing that is glitched, but I love everything about the control used here.

This is the path my eye followed at first sight. The piece began as fully abstract in my mind, then as I was led downward to the left I spotted the eye, which led to the discovery of the rest of the body.
I also want to note the higher-level balancing happening across the canvas. The square image within the lighter white frame is placed up and to the right. There is a weight balance happening inside the image as the movement of material gestures left and downward.
Just enough of the inner image breaks out of the frame to create a sense of largeness and dimension.
The wave can easily be seen as an abstract gesture that continues the movement of the glitched head back around to the right in a way that creates continuous flow around the image.

Collect or bid on the piece.

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‘Glownoise landscape I’ by Lucy Benson

First impression:

Unlike the previous two pieces, this one stood out by its use of open space and tranquility. I appreciate the compositional choices made, particularly in the way that the majority of the canvas is taken up by a single texture and just a sliver of complexity is added at the bottom to change, or create, the entire story. The area at the bottom allows for the rest to feel expansive. It turns what could easily be a basic sheet of texture into an artwork with perspective. A beautiful employment of feedback and noise.

Within the contrasting, grounding texture at the bottom, we get this little motif of stepwise in three different colors. The pink is the most prominent, evolving from large to small, faded to solid color. Of course, the yellow base feels most grounded with a grainy stone-like texture.
We get a rough fibonacci-like expansion from the bottom up. Though, thetwo-toned purple/blue area still feel like a single large area separate from the bottom texture.

Collect or bid on the piece.

Follow the artist on 𝕏.

Follow the artist on Farcaster.

Other Cool Things

Check out rapha’s discussion with æther about his work 'Random Access Memories' for the upcoming Atelier show ‘Visual Poetry’ in partnership with fxhash and HUG
I’m currently enjoying the work by four fantastic artist in the ‘Under Neith’ project.
Through each of their works, Alessandro Fiore, Jonathan Barbeau, Night Sea, and Sterling Crispin, probe the depths of absence—the void left by lost love, vanished dreams, and the silent spaces that define our inner and outer worlds.
They express the unspeakable and visualize the invisible, each piece acting as a meditation on the parts of our universe and lives that remain shrouded in mystery.
My favorite are the audio-visuals by Night Sea. Here’s an example of one:
Peter Bauman does a beautiful job of breaking down the common elements in generative art in his latest article ‘Demystifying Generative Aesthetics’
I’m fascinated by this gorgeous “kitchen lithograph” and its concept by Licia He. Read the comments to learn more about the process and materials. Vinegar?
Enjoy this awesome visual score to Xenakis’s ‘Pithoprakta’: