Abstract Realist Flow, 1999

Oil on board – 208 × 183 mm

This work initiates a distinctive dialogue at the liminal space between abstraction and realist depiction. While formally abstract in composition, the nuanced application of color and form contains subtle allusions that strive to evoke the intimate, almost tactile experience of flow. This sensation visually represents the cognitive-psychological state known as “flow,” wherein consciousness transcends temporal and spatial constraints, allowing creative energies to move freely. The painting’s evocative palette – dominated by greens that conjure landscape associations, interwoven with bluish-gray and occasional red-yellow accents – melds with waterfall-like gray tones, functioning as a natural metaphor for dynamic fluidity.

The intermingling hues of oil paint do not merely articulate the physical liquidity of the medium but also evoke the calming yet vibrant rhythms of nature, transforming the image simultaneously into a meditative space and a sensory impulse. Through this depiction of flow, movement, and rhythm, the painting attempts to visually capture an internal state – the flow of consciousness itself.

The work’s unique materiality – oil paint applied onto a piece of found street wood – evokes the conceptual spirit of the Arte Povera tradition, where the act of creation from simple, everyday, and sometimes discarded or neglected materials becomes an act of reinterpretation and value creation. This choice of substrate serves almost as a message in itself, reflecting on consumer society’s waste production and the transient nature of utilitarian objects.

Within the context of its period, the painting can be understood as an integral expression of meditative reflection, abstraction, and cultural discourse. Characteristic of interdisciplinary artistic practice, it embodies the convergence of nature, philosophical thought, and social issues within a visual language. Thus, the image transcends mere aesthetic experience to become a conceptual space where individual and collective states of flow intersect. The notion of “realist flow” paradoxically renders visible the most subjective experience – the internal psychic movement – through a pictorial language that evokes material reality without direct representation.

Accordingly, the painting simultaneously aspires to articulate the transcendent and to grasp the tangible realities of everyday life, while its material use and medium engage with key contemporary art discourses: the boundaries between art and life, creation and recycling, abstraction and realism, and ultimately, the essence of experiencing the creative process.