There he is.
This is a passage from a larger painting. (See previous post). The black shape is composed of energetic brush strokes, with no intention of depicting anything. But there he is, you can’t miss him and once you see the man in the black brush strokes, you can’t not-see him.
This happens all the time. You think you’re slashing away with your big brush and your gooey oil paint, with no thought of representation, and, behold, humanoid shapes keep emerging, faces and whole figures. IF you can see him, you have to count on others also seeing him. At that point there’s nothing to do except to decide whether to keep the form or to rework it to make it ambiguous.
If you decide to keep it, you have to count on the fact that this humanoid shape will dominate the painting. That’s just how our brains are wired. I’ll give you something you can recognize, especially something relating to your own species, and WHAMO, your brain can’t let go of it.
Abstract painting—painting “nothing”—is harder than that audience out there thinks.
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artamaze by Katherine Hilden 
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