Chaos Pepper

Alex Patz

Acrylic on Canvas

The name of the game for this project is abstraction so I decided to take a picture of my New York trip and try to abstract that while still retaining what makes it interesting. I took a photo of time square by the M&M’s store because I thought that it was a cool image and place to take a photo so I went for it. The reason I chose that photo from the New York trip, apart from that it was cool, was that it was a good trip which means a lot more to me after how horrible and scarring my trip to Japan ended up being. So, the vibrant color in the piece symbolizes the excitement but the chaotic splatter and dotted brushstrokes symbolize my irrational anxiety going into this next trip to New York that I had. My biggest struggle as I was making this piece was to give it some kind of form to base it off of. I was painting colors but they felt sort of directionless and they were less impactful to me. I solved this problem by painting two thick black lines to make the painting more striking and helped guide me as to where to go with it. The other major problem I had was trying to find a way to balance the light and dark to create a focal point. I solved this one by creating a gradient between the light and dark centers, having them hit the black lines, leaving a fade from yellow into a bright white to catch the viewer’s attention. I learned with this painting that abstraction comes a lot easier to me when I create some kind of guidelines for myself. Trying to create something out of nothing when it comes to art can be crippling because if you don’t really have any idea what you’re doing and you have to improvise, it doesn’t come very easily. It’s like getting someone to improvise a guitar solo with no key or time signature; it becomes difficult to find something by just thinking you’ll find something or by just painting randomly until you find some kind of direction. In the end, thinking of shapes or objects gave me more direction as well as exploring my emotions in the process.