Pandemic (2020)

2020 was challenging, but it wasn’t just because of a global pandemic. Covid-19 brought attention to many more challenges than just the accessibility to healthcare and political agendas.

At first glance, this one-of-a-kind abstract suggests the dark mass is growing like a plague, taking over a pristine white space. But at further observation one notices the thick layers, cracks, fractures, and waves of texture of the white space surrounding the dark mass— perhaps this richly saturated shape is actually shrinking back, being forcefully restrained?

As we look back at 2020, will we see it as a great catalyst to address human rights, racism, oppression, global warming, and environmental impact? Or will we see it as the year that the status quo succeeded in maintaining their toxic and falsely pristine landscape?

Pandemic - 2020

Size: 60x48”
Medium: Acrylic and gel mediums on canvas.

I created this piece shortly after being furloughed then laid off from a corporate job. It is a piece that embodies purging, reinventing, and resurrecting passion. The actual application of paint and the creation of each texture is what I associate with the beginnings of a new chapter and the farewell to an old. However the dark mass contrasted by the encroaching white also began to acquire symbolic significance for me as the piece took form.

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Does Abstract work really mean anything?

Yes, of course. But for a short period of time, maybe no? You love it, or you hate it. “What’s the point?” “My kid could draw better!” “I can DIY this for cheaper!”

If you like an abstract work, you might be attracted to the way the piece makes you feel, or because the combination of colors and textures stimulates something undefinable. But at the end of the day, the piece took hours, weeks, months to create and has an emotional, political, or justified reason for existing.
To connect with an abstract painting is more than just understanding the subject. It’s having your heartstrings pulled towards something that is beyond the literal world.
—T.G.Novy