Why Abstract Art is Important.

"Berthing at dawn"
Mono print by Peter Kreet. 1985.

The creation of art is best described as a method of self-realization. The purpose of this journey is to create a visual form of the subconscious.  Only by freeing yourself from objective reality is this quest achievable.

There are no laws governing art, the only requirement is courage to undertake the journey. There are three stages to any artistic development.

1. The struggle to acquire technique and an independent attitude to what art is.
2. Only with experiment by undertaking risk will the artist succeed.
3. This is the most difficult ,when technical skill has been acquired and the artist's knows what they want to say, but have difficulty in conveying this knowledge to the viewer. A viewer needs to search for the emotional and subconscious meaning within the painting not on the surface.

Central to much abstract  painting are the writings of Carl Jung. Abstraction is a vehicle for visual psychic meaning.
Most abstract expressionists artist would claim that their decisions are purely passive rather than active. They are spontaneous actions.

My current work is very much grounded in moral substratum [Fragment series], by this I mean it is not abstract in a pure sense but has a connection with the physical world. Although I use spontaneous gestural technique in parts of the work, I try to keep the painting grounded in our physical world not purely in subconscious. However this has not always been the case as the work above "Berthing at Dawn' , although not gestural work evolved from the subconscious as an expression of the sea , ships and dawn.