Abstract Art with a Meaning: Mixed Media

Meaningful art can communicate with a viewer even when the piece is completely abstract. It starts with the understanding of how the mind reads into abstraction and its “meaning”.

We will explore this by looking into the works of two famous abstract painters - Basquiat and Rauschenberg - and study their techniques, to broaden our awareness of how to make non-representational art communicate. Both masterfully incorporated words and images into their work, purposefully obscuring, misspelling, and even blocking these elements to encourage us to decipher "why".

By “borrowing” their techniques, you will learn how to speak with this visual language that will result in abstract pieces based on your own style and your ideas. You will investigate how you can develop a message by recontextualizing various forms of media (newspapers, magazines, advertisement pages, commercial packaging, etc.) - including your own written words. 

Even if abstract art is new to you, you will experience the joy of playful creation. 

• Receive real-time personalized feedback from the instructor throughout the process.
• Beginners will love the freedom of making abstract art.
• By the end of the course, you'll have four ready-to-hang abstract pieces.
• You’ll acquire a deeper understanding of the expressive potential of language in abstraction.

Advanced artists will enjoy reviving their sense of play through new techniques.