What is Abstract Expressionism?

It started innocently enough. I had a canvas, I had a LOT of paint, and I thought, "I just can't paint another flower!" This is how most of my hobbies start. Before I knew it, I was watching videos of people flinging paint in their garages, and muttering phrases like "color field" and "gestural marks" as if I knew what they meant. I don’t.

Abstract Expressionism is one of those art movements that people love to laugh at. You know the drill. You’re standing in a gallery, looking at a giant painting that looks like someone fought with ketchup and mustard, and the person next to you says, “I could do that.” Maybe you’ve said it yourself. I have.

Somebody did do that, and it wasn't me. And they did it at a very specific time, with feelings, and breaking the rules. It's not about painting something that looks like something. It's about creating something that evokes a sense of chaos, freedom, or a narrative where you, as the viewer, become the storyteller.

Edith Bunker was my first introduction to abstract expressionism. She was explaining to a crabby Archie that it is not what you see, but what you think you see. My ten-year-old mind was blown. If you don't know Edith and Archie, do a search for All in the Family.

The movement gained momentum in the 1940s and 1950s in New York. The postwar years feel similar to today. Tension, hope, and trauma, nobody knows how to navigate. Maybe that is why so many like it.

Jackson Pollock danced around the floor with his paint cans. Rothko stared at color until it wept. De Kooning painted women who looked like storms in lipstick. Critics were baffled. The public was annoyed. However, the art world had changed, and whether anyone liked it or not, this trend persisted.

Now here I am, decades later, in my garage, with an upside-down carpet to catch the paint drips, a brush, and a bottle of Diet Pepsi, making a huge mess.

Am I an artist now? YES! AND, I’m having a great time. Here's my picture, and yes, you could do it.