#107
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#107 © vesna milinkovic 2009
Posts Tagged ‘ABSTRACT ART’
#107
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009Future Glow 2010
Sunday, December 27th, 2009Future Glow
Our Christmas project, pondered on the afterglow of way too much booze; a New Year’s poster illustration titled Future Glow 2010, designed in conjunction with furniture designer John Barnard. The egg-shaped portal represents a vision of new growth for the coming year, while the sun symbol is our source of light, sustenance and inspiration for the months ahead.
Wishing you all a spiritually uplifting and prosperous 2010 from VA!
Future Glow 2010 by John Barnard & Vesna Milinkovic © 2009
www.johnbarnard.co.uk
John Barnard is one of the UK’s leading furniture designers,
“the last great artisan” Ben Barnard, Habitat
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Gabriel
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009GABRIEL
The Annunciate, incorporeal being in blue, witness of Passion.
Gabriel, spirit of truth and personification of the Holy Spirit.
Gabriel, 2009
acrylic on canvas
100cm x 100cm
A new abstract painting
by Vesna Milinkovic, also available as a gicleé print, online at
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related article: angelgirl
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cuneiform
Monday, December 7th, 2009CUNEIFORM
Cuneiform emerged in the Sumerian civilization, and is the earliest known writing system on earth.
Cuneiform derives from the Latin cuneus, meaning “wedge”
Cuneiform, 2009
acrylic on canvas
142cm x 112cm
A new abstract painting by Vesna Milinkovic, also available as a gicleé print, online at
E=mc2
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009There’s a great little book by Paul Arden, Whatever you Think, Think The Opposite.
So I applied that to Einstein’s theory of relativity: √mc = E
Conclusion: get to the root of the matter & release a load of energy.
Genius.
V
∞
E=mc2
by Vesna Milinkovic © 2009
PROJECT 11:11 : The Synopsis
Sunday, November 29th, 2009PROJECT 11:11
• – - – - : • – - – -
Ink on Paper
11 works
11 months
born NOV 2009: 11:11
conceived JAN 2009: 1:11
1st full moon of the year
another heavenly body
Neil Armstrong APOLLO 11
21 DEC 2012 @ 11:11am
end of Mayan Calendar
WE: the human race
The 11th Hour
FREEDOM
appears 11 times in The New Testament
ON:ON
illumination:illumination
Round, like the heavenly bodies that govern the measurement of time.
Movement: Guido Mocafico
Α∩Ω
PROJECT 11:11 has been inspired by
11:11
In The Shadow Of The Moon: Ron Howard
Movement: Guido Mocafico
∞
PROJECT 11:11 now available on-line @ VESNA ABSTRACT>ART>INK ON PAPER
project 11:11
Wednesday, November 11th, 200911 months in conception
11 works completed
11:11
the new art collection
PROJECT 11:11
• – - – - : • – - – -
coming soon
spiritual art
Friday, November 6th, 2009Concerning The
Spiritual
In Art
Why spiritual art?
Why not just art?
You’re weird aren’t you… you’re one of those?
Back in early 2000 and something, I did a couple years of undergraduate study in philosophy with The Open University. I was really excited about it. I experienced an amazing first year exploring The Human Situation, and my second year was a focus on the field I love the most… art.
What could possibly go wrong?
Music Conducted In The Rain
I was really organised, mind-maps at the ready, prepping from word go for my end of year exam.
While almost having completed the course, I spent one evening reviewing my notes. In doing so, I became aware of feeling intensely frustrated; I realised that I didn’t believe in any of the information I was willingly committing to memory.
When it came to exploring the question What Is Art?, nothing I had been instructed to read came even close to tapping the truth. At the time, I couldn’t quite grasp what the truth might look like… but I knew it was out there, like space… another frontier, hopefully not so final. This particular realisation came as a bit of a blow at the time, which presented me with a dilemma. Do I memorise utterly useless information and outdated concepts for the sake of passing my second year, or do I quit now before I do any lasting damage to my synapses?
I decided that encouraging my ability to think for myself was more important, and so I defiantly boycotted the exam.
While I continued to read the odd bit of Bertrand Russell, my imagination was being gently captivated by the metaphysics section of the book store. One mind-bending book led to another, which would thus lead to another five, and so on, multiplying like rabbits on Viagra. Years later, my home resembles some strange landscape of totem stalagmites, made entirely of books, depositing in obscure places, and in alternate subject layers of art and spirituality.
A good friend and Demartini practitioner said to me ‘ten minutes in a persons home and I’ll tell them exactly what their life purpose is.’
Well. It took me a little longer than ten minutes. Try ten years.
I now realise that the frontier had come to me; a precipitated truth in the shape of book deposits. The concept of spirituality in art was now dripping upwards from my book totems and slowly crystallizing between my ears.
Synchronously, in the summer of 2006, Tate Modern exhibited The Path To Abstraction, an impressive collection of 80 Kandinsky works charting his journey through The Blue Rider group and Bauhaus periods. The Tate describes Wassily Kandinsky as;
‘a modernist master’ who ‘began to conceive of painting as an alternative pathway to spiritual reality… In abstraction, Kandinsky felt that he had discovered a spiritual reality which was more powerful for not being tied to the outside world – an alternative music for the senses.’
Swallows In My Dreams
This was one art exhibition I felt compelled to visit. Even so, it was yet another two years before I read Kandinsky’s seminal work, Concerning The Spiritual In Art. The artist explores concepts of inner resonance or vibration of the soul as spiritual experience, facilitated by art, specifically the cause and effect of painting and colour on the soul.
It began to dawn on me that art and spirituality, within the current context of western culture, generally appear to be presented to us with an inference of mutual exclusivity. Mixing the two feels very much taboo. While there has been a renaissance in mind body spirit associated subjects in the past decade, there seems to be a black hole when it comes to serious exploration of the spiritual within art. This only serves to highlight, not only the significance of Kandinsky’s work, but the courage it must have taken to propose such theories, especially in a time devoid of the spiritual awakening we are now experiencing.
The spiritual in art is a part of every indigenous culture, indeed the indigenous Way is one of Spirit which guides every aspect of life, and is therefore inseparable from their higher forms of expression. This is not a new concept, this is an ancient practice that has been marginalised (as have the indigenous) in the race for egoic power. However, times are a changing, the feminine principle is making her presence felt, we are in the throws of rediscovering our spiritual roots once again. This is the early train to recovery, destination: Spirit.
Michelangelo is quoted as having said ‘the true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.’ This implies a creativity that strives for such perfection. Our creations can only ever be a reflection of our true state. It is impossible to escape the reality of what we have created for ourselves thus far, and yet it is entirely possible, critical even, that we take responsibility for our creations. Only then can we truly expect to elevate ourselves from mere struggle for survival. It is in the striving, the creative process, that we reach for a better version of ourselves. It is time that we recognise, openly acknowledge, and celebrate the relationship between art and spirituality, contrary to what society would have us believe, as inseparable. Like Picasso once said, ‘God is really only another artist.’
V
∞
paintings on canvas
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009The Musician,
The Butcher,
The Weaver,
and the Two Miserable Bastards
I have a story for you.
Solka was the town’s musician. Once a month, everyone would gather in the market place to celebrate life by dancing the night away, where Solka would provide the music. It was customary for the penultimate tune to be a Solka special, a brand new composition, which became increasingly experimental by the month and would generally receive mixed reviews;
‘Solka, that was terrible, you ruined my night, I think you should have your ears waxed!’ cried the Cobbler.
‘Yeh Solka, da woz well dodgy, yu gettin worz a’ dis, no bette, stik to old ones mayte,’ said the Tailor.
The Butcher raised her hands in the air, ‘hey, don’t be beatin’ up on the guy! Solka… don’t listen to them, they talk rubbish all night, I think you’re new song is great… I love it.’ The Butcher consults the Weaver, ‘it’s great stuff, right?’
PLAY ME!
They all turn to the Weaver, who shrugs, ‘I don’t know nothin’ bout music man, leave me alone.’
Solka would take a silent swig from his beer while grinning from ear to ear. This would vex the Tailor no end, ‘I don kno wat yu smile at yu bastar, but yu makin mi earz bleed!’, at which point the Tailor would take a sharp dig in the ribs from the Butcher.
And so it went, every month, every year, and every decade, until all the townsfolk had passed, including Solka the Musician.
Once the last of them had passed, they all gathered on the other side of the veil for a celebration of their lives lived. Solka joined the crowd, beer in hand, of course.
‘Solka!’ exclaimed the Butcher, ‘what you doing here with us, you should be up there playing your music?’
‘I thought I’d take a break and celebrate with you guys instead.’ Solka smiled sweetly.
The Cobbler and the Tailor looked at one another, and then at Solka, ‘no bein’ funni mayte bu’ probly bette chance of decen’ muzik from de angels right?’ said the Tailor.
‘Christ!’ exclaimed the Butcher, ‘you just can’t give the guy a break, can you, not even now?!’
Solka laughed, while re-directing their gaze to the angel musician who was right on time. The music started playing, and everyone jumped to their feet to dance. There was more love and laughter in the air that night than ever before, it was a great celebration.
‘Ang on a mini,’ exclaimed the Tailor, ’somthin’ wrong wid de muzic!’
The Butcher grabbed Solka’s arm, ‘oh my God Solka, the angels are playing your tunes!’
The Cobbler turned to Solka, ‘ok sunny, how much did you slip the angel?’
‘I always knu yu wer dodgy bastar Solka,’ said the Tailor.
‘You guys can just shut the hell up, because look, everyone is having an amazing time, including me… and the only miserable bastards here are you two!’ exclaimed the Butcher.
‘Well, I no care de angels pley yor staff Solka, iz still shit… wid capitol T!’ said the Tailor.
‘Are you ever gonna talk Solka, or are we faced with your grin for eternity?’ asked the Cobbler.
‘It’s not ‘my‘ shit guys, never was. I just listened carefully to what the angels were playing, and did my best to play it back to you, that’s all.’ said Solka. The Butcher gave Solka’s arm another squeeze.
The Cobbler turned to the Tailor, ‘it kinda grows on you…’
The Tailor turned to the Weaver and asked, ‘and yu, I supowz yu think iza fantaztik az well?’
The Weaver shrugs, ‘hey, like I said before, I don’t know nothin’ bout music man, leave me alone.’
From that day on, the Cobbler and the Butcher would always turn up to Solka’s gigs, and dance the night away.
The Weaver, well… he decided it was time to get educated, he’s now in music school, and loving it. He has a particular passion for bass guitar.
As for the Tailor, he eventually became one of Solka’s biggest fan’s, and now runs his fan club.
Δ
When I stand at the canvas, I never quite know what is about to take place. No matter how much planning, the work tends to do its own thing… if I’m lucky… if I’m listening… really carefully.
V
∞
original art
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009Ever So Slightly Unconventional Ånarchic Tendencies…
Å
PUSH MY BUTTON, I DARE YOU
To suggest that artists are an-archê, or without-sovereignty would be misleading; artists are sovereign alright, self-sovereign. What true artist stands poised at the canvas and thinks to themselves, how can I be original today? I’ll tell you… none. The artist is The Unconventional Anarchist, recognising no other master but herself, who begins from her core and works her way out to the current misnomer of reality. The very fact that she stands at a canvas at all, is testament to an independent spirit. She doesn’t give a stuff how her work is, or will ever be perceived, it would be missing the entire point of the process. To quote sculptor Louise Nevelson, ‘the very nature of creation is not a performing glory on the outside, it’s a painful, difficult search within.’
Think about the essence of how we are; creativity is innate, primordial and necessary to the survival and prosperity of the human spirit. But why? What is it that we are searching for exactly? Scientists, sociologists, psychologists, spend endless amounts of time and resource excavating how and what we are, but who is digging on who we are? The metaphysicians, thats who. The artist is the private metaphysician and alchemist rolled in one, excavating the soul by means of blending matter that happens to be at our disposal. The gold we are working to manifest must reflect us, all of us, an infinite number of facets and dimensions of who we truly are. This is no job for the feint hearted, especially in today’s material world. Everywhere we go, we are told what to do, watch, buy, appreciate, get angry about, how to behave and think, even how, when and who to love. We’ve allowed this state of play to continue at the cost of our spiritual integrity.
So what does being original really mean in the context of art, and society’s value system de rigueur? How about an independent mind, body and spirit? So when the true artist stands at the canvas, she asks ‘who am I now’, knowing full well that the answer morphs as a consequence of asking the question itself.
And so given this criteria, I ask you, how could the art be anything but original?
V
∞
abstract art kundalini
Friday, October 30th, 2009A Strictly Personal Point of View…
otherwise, frankly, would would be the point?
If it’s a definition we need, we’d hit Wiki, right? So let’s cut out the foreplay.
click me baby for art's sake
I’m always fascinated to meet and read about talented people who have been submerged in a world of creativity from the beginning, it makes for great conversation. I was privileged to meet one such individual, the gifted sculptor Ros Newman, who was raised around art royalty, the likes of Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth & Ben Nicholson. I have to admit, I was pretty star-struck with Ros’s recollections, which she found highly amusing.
My roots by modern standards are modest, being of first generation Serbian stock, family life was more about survival than creativity, we we’re pretty low on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I’ve been painting and drawing from a very early age, but earnest exposure to art started at university where I began exploring dada and surrealism. Revelation came when I first made eye contact with a Mark Rothko painting, I remember thinking to myself, are people really allowed to paint like that? Which instantly translated to Shit, I should be painting like that! I had no idea how, but I knew from that moment that I would. Rothko was very aware of his paintings potential to provoke religious experience in the observer, and it certainly did in me. And not just as a result of his extraordinary painting, but by Rothko’s ability to convey the spiritual in his work; every painting is another piece from his soul, he understood both intuitively and intellectually that personal growth was about process. I was overwhelmed.
I find painting from observable reality very dull, and still do, it’s just not my bag. And yet I have always been fascinated with creating on a blank canvas. Looking back on some of my much earlier attempts as a teen, I now realise that the urge to abstraction was always there, but didn’t know how to express itself with any meaning. Rothko was my first teacher and I’m still distance-learning. The Late Series exhibition at Tate Modern was an emotional and spiritual experience, it was like walking around a true church, of the soul.
Abstraction is like great sex and the purest love all rolled into one; it just hits the spot. A language of and for the soul, abstraction is a collection of symbols, movements and moments like hammers hitting piano strings, to paraphrase Kandinsky. A great abstract work doesn’t look like anything, and so we automatically look inward for points of reference. I’ve noticed that when viewing art created by others, it either works for me or it doesn’t. Why is that? It’s as if a hand shoots out from the image, reaches into my gut, grabs it really hard and refuses to let go. Thank you and goodnight, it’s like love at first site, a good vibration.
Ultimately all matter is vibration; light hits the retina and the brain attempts to make sense of it, when in fact the light is already speaking to the heart, which then translates for the soul. The language of abstraction is the language of light, it’s kundalini energy charged, erotically esoteric and esoterically erotic. And so the artistic process is synonymous with the journey to enlightenment.
Painting abstract is having sex with God, while the painting itself is proof that I did.
V
∞
jutro, an exercise in no-mind
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
Just because it's a great morning!
Jutro which translates from Serbian as Morning, was painted back in 2004, a work that I still enjoy looking at because it refuses to date. One evening, in 2007, while prepping my entry for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, I had space for a third entry (at a time when we were allowed three rather than two entries). I selected Jutro kind of by accident, after a couple glasses of wine (a self-confessed light-weight)! It was only after I had completed the entry forms that I realised I had intended to select a different piece. Ironically, Jutro was shortlisted… a first! Just goes to show what happens when the mind moves out of the way of the decision-making process…wine-induced or otherwise.
V
∞
Editor’s note: Jutro is available as a giclée print on paper or stretch canvas by clicking on the image. Or check out the Print gallery, go to the home page main menu.
poppy
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009
Living with illusion, the transient nature of life
Poppy
I write, erase, rewrite
erase again, and then
a poppy blooms
Φ
kaite mitari
keshitari hate wa
keshi no hana
Hokushi 1718
Ψ
Editor’s note: the flower, in Japanese poetry, symbolizes human life. Keshi translates as both poppy and erase; and so the erasing of a flower is metaphorical for the transitory nature of human existence.
ART: this poignant Japanese haiku inspired the Op-Art work on canvas Poppy. To view in full, visit the VA Art & Print galleries by clicking on the image. Giclée prints available on stretch canvas & paper.
Hit Me Hard… and Fast
Friday, August 7th, 2009In this world, modern artists are a sort of spiritual underground.
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991)
Painting is the opposite of death, it permits one to survive, it also permits one to live.
Joan Mitchell (1925-1992)
Colour is light, and light is the manifestation of creation. Without light there would be no life, and no existence. Light, in fact, is the primary witness of creation.
Edgar Cayce, Auras
A drawing is the gushing forth of an awakening spirit.
Georges Rouault (1871-1958)
You are not on this planet to produce anything with your body. You are on this planet to produce something with your soul. Your body is simply and merely the tool of your soul. Your mind is the power that makes the body go. So what you have here is a power tool, used in the creation of the soul’s desire.
Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations With God, book 1
Painting is a state of being…
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956)
The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel.
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944)
I saw shapes on the ceiling…
Joan Miro (1893-1983)
Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.
John Lennon
I believe that any kind of transcendence, spirituality or redemption, starts with the ordinary.
Sean Scully (b.1945)
Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.
Andre Gide (1869-1951)
I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.
John Lennon
Spiritual truth must be lived in practical life to change everyday experience.
Neal Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, book 2
To us art is an adventure into an unknown world, which can be explored only by those willing to take the risks.
Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, New York Times, 1943
If I am searching for my spirituality, passionately, I must begin with me.
Jill Scott, One Is The Magic #
Dreams are like the paints of a great artist. Your dreams are your paints, the world is your canvas. Believing, is the brush that converts your dreams into a masterpiece of reality.
Pablo Picasso
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
John Lennon
I sit for two or three hours and then in fifteen minutes I can do a painting, but that’s part of it. You have to get ready and decide to jump up and do it.
Cy Twombly (b.1928), Cycles and Seasons
Faith removes limitation.
Napoleon Hill
It was just a kiss, a loving gesture. I kissed it without thinking; I thought the artist would understand….It was an artistic act provoked by the power of Art.
Rindy Sam, after she kissed one panel of Twombly’s triptych Phaedrus, 2007
My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.
John Lennon
I am basically a poet who turned out badly.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
I paint my own reality. The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
I think with painting you can get rid of the problem of time. You can feel it abstracted in the rhythms, in the layers of the painting, but you are, for a moment, free.
Sean Scully (b.1945)
[For Mitchell] painting is like music – it is beyond life and death. It is another dimension.
Gisèle Barreau (b.1948)
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.
John Lennon
If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein
There has never been such a fish.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea.
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887), Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887
The progression of a painter’s work as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity. toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea. and the idea and the observer. To achieve this clarity is inevitably to be understood.
Mark Rothko (1903-1970)
The love of colour has to be real. In fact like love.
Sir Terry Frost (1915-2003)
Love comes very near to translating one’s thought impulses into their spiritual equivalent.
Napoleon Hill
If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliché that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that’s his problem. Love and peace are eternal.
John Lennon
You’re confusing product with process. Most people, when they criticize, whether they like it or hate it, they’re talking about product. That’s not art, that’s the result of art. Art, to whatever degree we can get a handle on (I’m not sure that we really can) is a process. It begins in the heart and the mind with the eyes and hands.
Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure, Fish Story, 1994
“Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammer, the soul is the piano with the strings.”
Wassily Kandinsky
What I dream of is an art of balance.
Henri Matisse (1869-1954), O Magazine, April 2003
[Mahatma] Gandhi wielded more potential power than any man living in his time, and this despite the fact that he had none of the orthodox tools of power, such as money, battleships, soldiers and materials of warfare.
Napoleon Hill
Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.
John Lennon
As the world has become more technological, a human need for mystery and the individually authentic experience has become more desperate.
Sean Scully (b.1945)
Simply want nothing. Have preferences, but no needs. Yet this is a very high state of being: it is the place of Masters.
Neal Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, book 2
absolute Vlog
Thursday, August 6th, 2009I must be one of the last human beings in the West to finally have their own blog, the Vesna Abstract Blog, re-named from here on in… VLOG ! This may prove to be a slightly bumpy ride, until I get the hang of this new bit of kit. But seriously, dialogue with all of you that have a view about Abstract Art, and more specifically, the Metaphysical, Spiritual, Esoteric, Intuitive and Healing aspects of art, is what its all about. It feels kind of niche right now, and I’m thinking that it’s time for the Intuitive Way to go mainstream. Art has been in the orthodox closet long enough, it’s time to come out with heresy, and paint it like it is!
Love & Light
V ∞