Boost Your Creativity Through The Art of Abstract Art
There is a lot more to abstract art than just a beautiful piece of artwork. Believe it or not, abstract art can and does help us to improve critical and creative thinking.
There is always room for improvement. Something I keep reminding myself and others around me all the time. We must continue to improve ourselves. There is always more to learn and develop.
As we learn more about ourselves through self-reflection and self-awareness, we may identify areas where we want to develop to become the best possible version of ourselves.
But, how do we identify room for improvement within ourselves? How do we implement such improvement? The answer to these questions is simple, but not as straightforward as you may think.
Answer = Creativity.
In this article, I will demonstrate one of the methods you could consider for self-improvement. I will also highlight the strong link between creativity and my favourite subject – abstract art.
I will make references to the link between creativity and abstract. Like most, if not all abstract artists, I use abstract painting to continuously improve self-expression and self-discovery.
The creative process also helps me to improve myself, my art and generally speaking, my way of thinking.
What is Creativity
Before we dive deeper into the definition of creativity, I would like to tell you about a little event I have recently organised for a couple of my friends.
Like many people, art may refer primarily to wall art of a beautiful picture or a painting hanging in the living room or dining room, i.e., adding a little more décor to the room.
To my friends, abstract art seems to be more challenging as they are unable to identify recognisable objects. And like many people’s reaction to abstract art is that it makes no sense or a 5-year-old kid could do that. But being polite, they never actually said that to me.
In my studio, I prepared a large canvas measuring 1.6 w x 2.40 h metre (63 x 94 inch), a few selections of acrylic paints, brushes and a couple of painting aprons. And let’s not forget coffee, too.
I didn’t tell them the plan beforehand, so they were expecting to come for a tour of my studio. But when they came, I briefly showed them where the paints and brushes were, gave them the aprons and I said roll up your sleeves and give it your best shot.
They were completely taken by the surprise. But I could tell they were eager to have a go, not necessarily knowing what exactly to do.
“What do we do?” “Where do we start?” – they asked me. I told them there are no rules to follow and with a bit of encouragement from me starting the painting process off, they were on their way.
I stood back and watched them play for almost 3 continuous hours. And they just loved it.
It was amazing to see and experience creativity in action without thought process, planning or preparation. Without the “dos” and “don’ts”. Just pure freedom. That is pure impulsive creativity. We all have impulsive creativity.
Children are born creative, but unfortunately, we then teach them to become uncreative by imposing so many rules and constraints on their creative thinking process. We want them to be like us, to fit in the society and follow the society’s rules.
Professor George Land’s TED talks about his research Evidence that children become less creative over time. Check it out. Interesting research!
The definition of creativity
The definition of creativity in simple broad terms is the ability to discover new ideas that would help to improve, develop and add value to a situation or solve problems. It is also possible to use existing or old ideas to develop new ideas.
Creativity is thinking and performing above and beyond the usual limitations and constraints that we face in our life experiences. Creativity may come naturally to some people.
But, creativity is an ‘ability’. Anyone can develop creative ability skills providing you allow yourself time to learn and practise it over and over again. Just like any other skill.
Creativity can bring us great joy.
The Creative Process
Creativity is a way to see and think which engages deeply with all of our basic senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. These basic human senses are essential for us to learn, understand and perceive the world we live in.
Each of these senses provides unique information.
There is a great article published by Live Science that goes deeper in explaining The five (and more) human senses. The research tested 1600 five-year-old children and discovered that 98% of them were creative geniuses. But as we get older, only 2% of us adults may qualify to be creative geniuses.
Children have amazing abilities to think and act freely as they are not bound by rules. Children are freely capable of linking so many different but unrelated ideas and things.
This is also known as divergent thinking. It is a vital element of critical and creative thinking
This brings me to a similar (in a way) but different subject – shoshin (初心) – a Japanese phrase which means “beginner’s mind”.
This concept refers to keeping an open mind, eager and ready to absorb and process more information without any preconceptions.
It’s a huge challenge to practise and implement “beginner’s mind”. In these modern times, we are surrounded by the concept of competition and status.
Children at school learn by memorising vast amounts of information to do better on examinations. They also learn to compete with their peers to achieve higher grades and get accepted at the “best” colleges aimed at high-paying careers.
All schools seem to put great emphasis on science subjects such as maths, physics, biology, chemistry, etc. Things like trigonometry, algebra, calculus, kinematics, thermodynamics, electrostatics, biotechnology, genetics, and the list go on.
Don’t take me wrong, these are great subjects and I enjoyed studying all of them. However, I have never used most of them in my life after 18 years of education. I’m not saying we shouldn’t teach our children these subjects, but it is the level of depth schools seem to emphasise.
The same style of education continues in higher education. Millions of university graduates around the world struggle to find employment. “They lack practical hands-on experience and they need further training” – somebody told me!
Our minds can become crammed with huge amounts of irrelevant pieces of information, which could restrain the opportunity for growth, mindfulness and creativity. We can more easily connect with our environment when our mind is free.
Free Your Creativity
We can only be creative when the emotional conditions in our minds are right. We can think more creatively when we feel better and when we feel positive about ourselves. A positive emotional charge is one of the main keys to triggering creativity. Here are a few steps to consider:
1. Control negative thoughts
The first step to freeing your creativity is to control negative thoughts – easier said than done! I’m sure there are many ways to overcome negative thoughts, but I will mention my way of handling negative thoughts.
Doing something different immediately. I go out for a long walk in the park. I believe Nature is a great mind healer and a tremendous source of positive energy. This is my practice of letting go.
I also go to my studio and start painting. It works for me every time because I need to shift my mind totally to the painting process. Earphones in and playing my favourite music loud.
This is a critical step and you need to find your own way to interrupt and discharge any negative feelings. It’s not easy but it comes with regular practice and the intention of knowing you want to reduce or eliminate bad feelings.
2. Look after yourself
“A healthy body, a healthy mind”. We’ve all heard this before. Your body’s health is directly affected by your mind. All our body functions come directly from the mind.
Exercise regularly, eat well and sleep better. We all have heard this before, too. It’s true and I don’t think there is any other way around it.
Look at the bright side, be optimistic, life is full of great things – enjoy them. All these things play a vital role in building your positive ‘self’. It helps to reduce levels of stress and depression.
3. Tackle fear of criticism
In his book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill identified 6 basic fears in Chapter 15 – How to outwit the six ghosts of fear.
Hill believed that almost all of us have or will come across a combination of some of these fears at some point in our lives. Here are the six basic fears:
- Fear of poverty
- Fear of criticism
- Fear of ill health
- Fear of loss of love of someone
- Fear of old age
- Fear of death
The book also highlights the three biggest enemies that we may face in our lives. These are fear, indecision and doubt.
This is not a new discovery as we all can recognise those fears and enemies. More importantly, how do we deal with such powerful negative forces?
The answer to that question is not simple, but all I can say is to recognise that fear is a state of mind. One of the best ways to deal with fear is to try to replace it with positive thinking.
Fear is negative energy and needs to be replaced with positive energy.
Each person will need to find their own suitable ways to overcome fear depending on their individual circumstance.
We’ve all dealt with criticism at some point in our lives and maybe we will come across it again. Fear of criticism can create a huge barrier to creativity. Overcoming criticism is crucial to the development of creativity.
As an abstract artist, I come across criticism quite a lot. Some could be constructive and some could be not so constructive.
Three things I always remind myself of when I receive criticism:
- The first thing is not to take it personally and to recognise and accept that criticism is the opinion of other people. They could be right or they could be wrong.
- Secondly, everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.
- And thirdly, can I learn something new from it if there is something to learn.
For example, the painting event I organised for my friends (which I mentioned before) is probably another way to deal with criticism playfully and joyfully.
I think my friends probably have learned different appreciation of abstract art. They asked me to repeat the event!
4. Time to think and reflect
Like most people, my days can be extremely busy doing several things. But when it comes to night-time, it’s my time.
Music is on. TV is off, no checking and responding to emails, no social media and no mobile phone.
Get into the habit to think about happy thoughts, events, memories and anything that makes you feel good and happy.
Think of yourself positively. Describing yourself, your activities and performances using positive words and phrases such as:
Inspiration, motivation, imagination, observation, visualisation, enthusiasm, planning, ambition, attention to detail, problem-solving, time-management, dealing with insecurity, managing procrastination, embracing change, self-expression, accepting errors and failures, commitment to improve and produce, perseverance, achievements and results, etc.
Creativity Embraces Change
Most of us don’t like changes and sometimes we resist changes. We like our routine because it’s a safer route and knowledge of experiencing the world we live in.
Change brings along creativity. Let me explain with one example.
COVID-19 pandemic forced the whole world to change in many aspects. Life has changed and will never be the same again.
Within just a few days from the first lockdown and stay home strict instructions, many people managed successfully and creatively to find a solution to the problem of continuing work.
Working from home was not something new, but the mass adaptation to working from home became the norm very quickly. And overnight, ‘Zoom’ conference technology became a household name.
Between April and May 2020, we spent over £2 billion on home-office equipment and furniture.
I accept that change may not be easy, but I always remember the following two quotes:
“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our problems” – Charlie Chaplin.
“Change is the only constant in life” – Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher.
Further reading: How Can I Be More Creative.
What is the Main Idea of Abstract Art?
Abstract art painting began as a result of creativity – to do more, to develop, to create. Being not content with the conventional art styles, at that time, artists wanted more of the creative process. They sought freedom of expression and self-discovery.
Creating abstract art opens up an unconstrained limitation to the imagination. Similarly, when you are looking at an abstract painting your imagination is literally limitless.
This is different from looking at realism art paintings. Our creative brain can quickly identify the recognisable objects of the painting with very high accuracy.
This is not the case with abstract art. Abstract art demands time to absorb the objects in the painting and leave it for your imagination to create your individual emotional response.
Abstract Art Stimulates Creativity and Imagination
Our creative brain is probably the most complex and most amazing living organism ever created. It uses our five senses to quickly and in a split second identify recognised objects.
When you look at a tree, even just a quick glance, the creative mind immediately interprets and recognises it. When you read, our creative brain works even faster than our eyes to predict the rest of the word. It works in a similar way to predictable text technology on your mobile phone.
And this is what happens to most of us if not all of us when we are looking at an abstract painting. The creative mind quickly scans the painting to identify a recognisable image. If we can’t find a recognisable image, most of us would quickly dismiss the painting.
However, if you give yourself more time looking at the painting, the creative mind begins to engage your feelings in search of something meaningful from your individual life experiences.
You may begin to interpret colour meanings and associations. You may begin to interpret your emotional response toward shapes and lines, texture and composition.
(Allowing sufficient time to look at artworks led to the creation of The Slow Art Movement concept in museums and galleries around the world.)
Our creative brain will use everything possible to make sense of the world we see and experience. It will even use imagination to find some meaning.
Our brain’s response to abstract art is a perfect example of how we deal with ambiguity, uncertainty, doubt, the unknown, etc. and may inspire us to think creatively.
Abstract Art and Creative Thinking
Creative thinking is simply the ability to “think outside the box”. To think differently.
We never stop thinking and we never stop imagination. Thoughts are images, they are intangible and they are abstractions.
Our thoughts are our reflections on the information we already have. To think outside the box means simply to collect and analyse new information.
You may ask: where do I get new information from?
We all live a busy life and are frequently so preoccupied that we begin to lose sight to observe and pay close attention to the present moment.
I firmly believe that everything we’ve created and invented so far and will create and invent in the future is a direct result of closely observing nature.
Take a walk in the park. Open your mind and observe nature. In my opinion, nature can tremendously help us to, at least, release some of the daily stresses and tensions.
Critical and creative thinking needs positive energy.
Creative thinking is a habit and a practice that is available for everyone to develop if they wanted. Creative people have learned to think creatively as a habit.
So, where does abstract art fit in creative thinking?
Abstract art exposes us to experience unrecognisable and unfamiliar subjects – the unknown. This is such a big challenge for us to deal with. We are more comfortable with recognisable and familiar objects.
One of the best ways to deal with the unknown is through:
- close observation, which triggers
- imagination, which could lead to
- creative thinking
Approach abstract art, whether creating or looking, with an open mind expecting to see unfamiliar objects. Allow your unique imagination to take you beyond what you already know.
That is the magic I find in abstract art and its ability to allow us to open ourselves up to new ideas. And it works for me.
I said it before and I will say it again. I do understand and appreciate that not everyone likes or will like art or abstract art and that is absolutely fine.
Abstract art is one of the main activities that allow me more opportunities for creative thinking.
I would be interested to hear what makes you creative.
Further Reading:
