How Abstraction Invites the Viewer to Co-Create Meaning

Abstract art doesn’t give you meaning — it invites you to create it. For Ritu Raj, the viewer’s response is not an afterthought. It’s the heart of the work.

Blackhole, 5ft x 6ft, Geometric Splendor, 2021

One of the most beautiful things about abstract art is that it doesn’t tell you what to think — it asks you to feel, to notice, to bring yourself to the experience. Unlike representational art, which often guides the viewer toward a specific scene or story, abstraction creates open space. It doesn’t explain. It invites.

In my own work, I often begin with a question or an emotion, but I never try to resolve it into a fixed message. Instead, I allow the painting to unfold through gesture, color, and form — leaving room for the unknown to enter. That unknown is not just mine. It’s also yours.

When someone engages with an abstract piece, they don’t just see the artist’s intent. They project their own inner world onto the canvas. A streak of crimson might evoke grief for one person, vitality for another. A field of soft gray might feel peaceful to one viewer and empty to someone else. These responses aren’t wrong — they’re essential. They complete the work.

This is what I mean when I say abstraction is a mirror. Not of the external world, but of the internal one. What you see is shaped by who you are — your experiences, your memories, your questions. Meaning is not delivered from the artist to the viewer like a finished product. It is co-created in the space between.

That’s why I’m drawn to abstraction as both a practice and a philosophy. It resists finality. It asks us to dwell in ambiguity. It honors multiple truths. And perhaps most importantly, it trusts the viewer. It says: You are part of this.

When I paint, I’m not trying to communicate a message in the traditional sense. I’m trying to hold space — space for feeling, for reflection, for presence. I don’t want the viewer to decode the work. I want them to live with it, to notice how their perception shifts over time, how the painting reveals something new depending on their state of mind.

In a world filled with so much certainty, so many declarations and conclusions, abstraction offers something radical: the freedom not to know. The freedom to feel without explaining. The freedom to find your own meaning, and to let that meaning change.

So when you stand in front of a painting and ask, What does it mean? — try asking instead, What does it evoke in me right now? That is where the co-creation begins. That is where art becomes not just something you see, but something you enter.

You can view the full Geometric Splendor Collection here.