But she paints in abstracts.
I like abstracts. One of my favorite paintings (okay, yes, its a reproduction, and I know that to some people, that's important) is an abstract of a city skyline. You can tell it's a skyline, and you might guess that it's New York (though it could be Vladivostok for all I know, or possibly not exist anywhere but the painter's imagination), but there isn't much more detail than that. The bulk of the buildings is vague, and that could be water in front of them.... or maybe not. I like it. I like the feel, I like the color, I like the shapes.
My friend's abstracts are different. There's more of a let me throw colors on here feeling to them. We visited once, and she was discussing a current work with my daughter, who said to her that she liked the painting, but it seemed as if it would be better, rotated. So my friend rotated it 90 degrees (to the left, if that's significant) and they agreed that it was better. To which I thought oh, this is some kind of in-the-club painter joke. But my daughter swore to me later that it was better.
As I say, my friend is successful, and I'm pleased for her. But to me - this, by Andrew Atroshenko, and found here on ODDMAN, is painting. It has color, texture, form. You can recognize what it's a painting of.
If I could paint, this is what I'd want to be able to do. (And yes, I have thought about taking a class. One time, when my daughter was taking one during the summer, I met the woman who taught the class. She was.... odd. Nice enough, but things were important to her that I didn't even recognize as things. The depth of this color, the shape of that line. So, no.)
I may not know art, but I know what I like.
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