By Alexys Taylor, Harvey B. Gantt Center

Many believe that abstract art is hard to understand and interpret, often leaving the viewer frustrated or confused. Our minds have been trained, since we were young, to find the right answer, leaving no room for creative thinking or interpretation. Unfortunately, this is how many view abstract art, as if they must find a correct answer.

Jackson Pollock, a 20^th century abstract artist said that abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. “There was a reviewer a while back,” Pollock said, “who wrote that my pictures didn’t have any beginning or any end. He didn’t mean it as a compliment, but it was.” With abstract work the artist understands that the viewer must read and interpret the piece on their own.

If you visited the Harvey B. Gantt Center recently, you may have seen the exhibition Selected Works of Dr. J. Eugene Grigsby: Returning to Where the Artistic Seed was Planted. This exhibit highlights thirty of Dr. Grigsby’s astonishing artworks. Among those pieces is his 1963 painting titled Abstraction in Red and Black. This oil on canvas work shows a burst of several colors, each able to stand tall on its own while still being unified. You may have noticed that there is not an actual “subject” in this piece. Instead the subject is the color, movement, and emotion that you feel while viewing the image.

Abstraction in Red and BlackJ. Eugene Grigsby (1918–2013)Oil on canvasca. 1963The John & Vivian Hewitt Collection, Permanent Collection of the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + CultureGenerously donated by Bank of America Corporation.

Starting at the top of the painting you see the color black filling the top section of the piece. As your eyes shift, you run right into a small section of bright yellow. As your eyes continue to move down, the color black returns but as your eyes move to the left you see faint reds and greens. Continuing on, you are hit with the boldness of red that covers most of the canvas. Viewing this red, you will notice that the black starts to seep back into action. Moving towards the left you are introduced to the color gray as it meets the reds and blacks. As your eyes move back to the right side of the piece you’ll view a small section of deep blue as it connects with the bright green and shifts towards an orange color. A significant section of bright yellows returns to cover the middle right corner of this piece. Finishing at the bottom of the image, the yellow hits the gray and introduces a smattering of pink. This then ends with black and gray to complete the image.

So how do we understand abstract art using Abstraction in Red and Black as an example? The key to this formula is that there is no right or wrong answer. Color is the primary subject of the Grigsby piece, but movement and emotion may serve as the subject matter for other abstract work. As noted earlier, the frustration arises when looking at abstract art and trying to find the “correct” storyline. There is not always a direct story that the artist wants to lay out for you. Instead of searching for the beginning and end of a story while viewing abstract work, try following wherever your eyes and heart take you.

When you think of the color red, what do you see? Is it blood, war, anger, passion, love, or desire? What about black? Is it darkness, the feeling of being alone? Is it power and pride? What about yellow? Do you think of the sun or your favorite flower? Does gray make you think of stormy weather or the color of your pet? Does blue remind you of the ocean or clear blue skies? Does it bring out sadness or calm? When you see green do you remember the grass stains on your shirt as a child or do you think of dollar bills? Let all of the answers come to you naturally and do not fall into the trap of over-thinking.

If you were to ask these questions of ten people, each might give you a completely different answer. So who is correct? The answer is everyone because even though there could be several different answers to the same question, each answer is an individual interpretation of this abstract art piece.

Abstract art requires that you think and interpret things on your own, in a freeing manner; it is truly what you make out of the piece. You may not like every abstract piece you encounter, but hopefully you will take a second look and allow your imagination and creativity to take over. The beauty of abstract art is that the painting starts in the mind of the artist and ends in yours.