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Inside you there's an artist you don't know about... Say Yes quickly, if you know, if you've known it from before the beginning of the universe.-Rumi
Drawing or painting, I often do something that's "wrong," in order to give an ultimatum to myself, to set up a dynamic, to play chess with myself. - Andrew Donnelly
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For some reason, I've always been averse to combining attempts at highly realistic art with abstract art (I should force myself to do it sometime), but I will do work that depicts real objects or at least objects that can be visualised, in a non-realist manner. Works like "J' Accuse" and "Buddha of the Jurassic" are examples of this. I'm not really being surrealist in these works. I'm not really trying to be anything. I just have an idea, or a few ideas, and run with what I've got in my system at the time.
In abstract art, one is free from having to depict anything, even in a stylised way, though a resemblance to an object may be noted and developed as one proceeds. Possibly because I am factually-minded(I read very little fiction), it is a release for me to enter a world that exists entirely on its own terms. The world of creating abstract art has its own rules, after a fashion, yet these rules are not always knowable in advance. And yet, and yet, and yet... They are the surprises of one's private universe.
The same can be said for my more abstract works and even my realist stuff to the extent that that kind of subject matter allows. Australian art critic Robert Hughes has commented that artists have as much interest in art history as birds have in ornithology. I like to read about art history but I seldom apply what I read in any deliberate way in either the planning or execution of my work. Mostly, I've just followed my whimsy wherever it took me and never worked via any "ism". Some things from my studies may have rubbed off on me, though. What do you think?
In the art scene, one hears intelligent and well-meaning people say an artist must an artist must work to a theme and achieve recognition in that way. Perhaps. But there is another approach to the whole issue of how an one lives life as an artist-just do your own thing. There'll still be an underlying theme-yourself. As long as you are true to yourself, you will have a theme-you. They say originality is dead as far as the invention of new styles and movements is concerned. Maybe. It's an assumption only, though I'm inclined to think it's a reasonable assumption. However, the originality that comes from what lies within every single human being, can by definition, never die as long as there is a single living person.
There's nothing wrong with maintaining a theme. I forced myself to do this with my geisha series from around 2005-my most sustained theme, and still only a few. The visitor to this site will see that I sometimes do very small runs of work with a common theme. These are not necessarily consecutive. This is simply how I work.