Why I Paint Abstract Art

People occasionally ask me why I paint abstract art.

The short answer is that I can't imagine painting any other way.

The longer answer is a little more complicated.

My creative life has taken a few turns over the years. Like many artists, I began making things long before I ever considered it a career. Drawing, painting, writing, anything that involved creating something from nothing felt completely natural. I was the child drawing on walls and making a mess with whatever materials I could find.

Years later, that curiosity eventually led me into a career as a scenic artist for film and theatre. For more than a decade, I painted sets, backdrops, and environments for productions large and small. It was exciting work. Fast-paced, collaborative, and endlessly creative. I was fortunate enough to work alongside incredibly talented people and contribute to projects that, at the time, felt larger than life.

What that experience taught me, perhaps more than anything else, was craftsmanship. I learned how to solve problems, work at scale, and trust the process. When a set needed painting, there wasn't much room for waiting around for inspiration. You simply got on with it.

Later came mural work, commissioned pieces, and a variety of creative projects. Valuable experiences, all of them. But much of that work involved bringing someone else's vision to life. The subject matter, style, and outcome were often determined before the first brushstroke was made.

Then life happened.

Family, work, responsibilities, and the usual busyness of everyday living filled the years. Creativity never disappeared entirely, but it certainly took a back seat for a while.

When I returned to painting several years ago, something had shifted.

I wasn't interested in creating work to meet a brief or satisfy expectations. I wanted to explore. To experiment. To discover what emerged when there was no predetermined outcome.

Abstract painting gave me that freedom.

Rather than trying to replicate what I could already see, I became interested in responding to what I could feel. A line, a shape, a colour, a memory, a fleeting observation from a walk, a conversation, a season of life. These fragments often become the starting point.

The painting then develops through a conversation between intuition and refinement.

People sometimes assume abstract work is random. My experience is quite the opposite. While intuition plays an important role, there is also structure, composition, balance, and decision-making. Some marks stay. Others disappear beneath layers of paint. The process is both spontaneous and deliberate.

What keeps me coming back is the sense of discovery.

Even after thousands of hours in the studio, I rarely know exactly where a painting will end up when I begin. There is something deeply satisfying about allowing a work to reveal itself over time.

Perhaps that is why abstract art continues to resonate with me.

Life itself rarely follows a neat, predictable path. We move between certainty and uncertainty, chaos and calm, clarity and confusion. Abstract painting allows room for all of it. It doesn't demand a single interpretation or a fixed story.

Instead, it offers an invitation.

An invitation to pause.

To notice.

To reflect.

And perhaps to find something of your own experience within the work.

That, ultimately, is what I hope my paintings offer. Not answers, but space. A moment of connection in an increasingly noisy world.

As for where the journey leads next, I'm not entirely sure.

But after all these years, I've learned that's often where the most interesting things begin.