Why Abstract Art Is Both the Simplest and the Most Demanding

Abstract art demands invention, not reproduction. Between Duchamp’s rupture, Richter’s ambiguity, and my own search for silence, I explore abstraction as a way to live and create.

Moving Through Time & Space, 5ft x 5ft, Black and White, 2023

Abstract art is often misunderstood. To many, it appears deceptively simple, as if the absence of recognizable forms makes the work less intentional. Yet for me, abstraction is both the simplest and the most demanding of all arts. It removes all external references — no figure, no subject, no model — leaving me alone with the surface, the materials, and the space between my perception and the unknown.

Figurative artists have something to hold onto. They can step back, measure, correct, compare their work to what they see. In abstraction, especially the kind of work I engage with — at once geometrical and organic, structured yet unpredictable — there is no such ground. The canvas becomes a field of invention, not reproduction. It’s not about expression in the loud, performative sense. It’s about silence, attention, surrender.

I see my work as moving along a continuum shaped by two profound influences in the history of abstraction. On one side, Marcel Duchamp shattered the very idea of art as an object, introducing the conceptual rupture where art became an intellectual provocation. On the other side, Gerhard Richter blurred the lines between abstraction and representation, using both as tools to question perception itself. Both artists created spaces where abstraction is not decoration or style, but a confrontation with reality, perception, and meaning.

In my own practice, I step into that space — between Duchamp’s conceptual transgression and Richter’s perceptual ambiguity — not to copy, but to continue the dialogue. Every painting becomes a field where the geometric and the organic collide, not to arrive at answers, but to dwell in the open. This is why abstraction, for me, is not just an art form — it is how I live, work, and engage with the world: embracing the uncertainty, listening to the silence, letting the work tell me what it wants to become.