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“There is no such thing as realism or abstraction necessarily. You’d find that out very quickly if you tried to eat a Cezanne apple–you’d get a mouthful of paint. So pretty much everything you make, no matter how skilled or how technical, is still your interpretation of something. You are not re-creating something, you are interpreting what you see, always. And with abstract art, your possibilities for interpretation are very broad, and you can’t do anything wrong. We are looking for opportunities, not correctness. Forget about the names of things– the more you think of something as a tree or a flower it’s going to get you in trouble. Instead, only look at shapes and textures.  One of the myths about abstract art is there’s no subject there, or the artist is not looking at anything when they did that, and I would say that’s ridiculous. Observation is a very important element, and is a way of collecting your visual thoughts. In summary, the only thing you can do wrong in art is not to make art. There’s a lot of pleasure to be had along the way, so keep open and be free.”

Dean Nimmer

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