Brighten Up Your Quarantine With Some Colorful Abstract Art!

Apr 3, 2020

The COVID-19 outbreak is changing the world and disrupting our lives in the most unprecedented way. Many countries around the globe introduced quarantine measures to prevent further spread of COVID-19. Staying home, however, doesn’t have to be a bore or depressing or moreover - to come without culture! Art is known to help us cope and endure through troubled times as our colorful abstract artworks collection will convincingly demonstrate. The nascent abstract art emerged and thrived through uncertainties and horrors of the 20th century. It was often submerged in the grim reality of the moment, but it nevertheless spurred hope, jubilation, and fortitude. Some of the greatest abstract art including the work by Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock, emerged as a part of Franklin Roosevelt’s Federal Art Project aimed to buoy morale of American citizens in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Today, when we are immersed in trepidation and fear caused by COVID-19, abstract art stands on the same trial as it did many decades ago. As spring arrives and nature comes alive defying the fast-spreading pandemics, vivacious and inspirational colorful abstract art will help you overcome this time of distress. To learn more about our latest selection of the most uplifting abstract art pieces, please scroll below.

Bill Kane - EM2020-12

Part of Kane’s latest Emanations series, EM2020-12 explores light as the most essential aspect of photography. A scanned image of a Buddhist thangka - a painting depicting a Buddhist deity - is blurred and stretched until only a distilled image of color and form remains. Printed, these reduced images, are elemental representations of the light bodies of the Buddhas that bestow a blessing upon those who view them. Kane is an American multi-media artist whose work intersects the boundaries of photography, painting, and printmaking in an effort to examine the idea of what an image is and can be. He lives and works in California, near San Francisco.

Bill Kane - EM2020-12, 2019. Pigment on watercolor paper. 50.8 x 50.8 cm.

Brent Hallard - W4

Playing with a landscape motif, Hallard uses equally spaced, horizontal bars of acrylic color on anodized aluminum to express his preoccupation with space and pure forms that challenge the perception of the viewer. The exactness and precision embodied in W4 are built on the legacy of abstraction, minimalism and the color field art while the strict limitations of form conceal the underlying interpretative openness. Hallard is an Australian-born abstract artist, curator, and writer whose works on paper and aluminum explore minimalist iconography and monochromatic expressions. He is currently living and working in Byron Bay, Australia.

Brent Hallard - W4, 2015. Acrylic on anodized aluminum. 25.4 x 20.3 cm.

Greet Helsen - Color Gardening IX

Helsen, celebrated for her abstract landscapes, conveys the innermost impressions of her encounters with nature in colorful and vibrant compositions. The luminosity of her landscapes is captivating as she mixes and dilutes her paints not only searching for the perfect hue but also the right translucency. Each layer in Color Gardening IX shines through the next emanating the most surprising vivacity and verve. Helsen is a Belgian artist who is inspired by nature, drawing abstract landscapes and using acrylic like watercolor. She lives and works in Switzerland.

Greet Helsen - Color Gardening IX, 2017. Acrylic on canvas. 50 x 50 cm.

Gina Werfel - Binocular Vision

With her background in landscape painting, Werfel creates lively compositions that echo the spatial complexities of landscapes. Fragments of her memory float as she explores emotional and atmospheric states within the pictorial space with her expressive, lyrical gestures. Conversely fiery and serene color choices of Binocular Vision encapsulate the burst of movement and daring improvisation.  Werfel is an American abstract painter whose work uses vivid color, lyrical gestures, and complex compositional structures to explore harmonies within visual space. Raised on Long Island, she currently lives and works near Sacramento, California.

Gina Werfel - Binocular Vision, 2016. Acrylic and mixed media on paper. 48 x 63.5 cm.

Paul Snell - Intersect # 201704

Intersect # 201704 epitomizes Snell’s distinct exploration of perception and artifice, a sensation of the eye. He captures an object or location with a traditional camera, digitally decodes the visual information reducing and simplifying the colors and forms until these reduced elements unfold into their self-referential relationships. This unfolding process maps the ambiguity and transitional states intrinsic to the medium. Snell combines traditional and digital techniques to explore the possibilities of abstraction and minimalism in contemporary photo-media. He lives and works in Launceston, Tasmania.

Paul Snell - Intersect # 201704, 2017. Chromogenic Print Face-mounted 4.5mm Plexiglas. 118 x 118 cm.

Holly Miller - Crash 1

The Crash series is Miller’s buoyant and hopeful response to frustration and anxiety emerging from deliberation on the contemporary American society. This upbeat piece unearths the lucid interpretation of Miller’s emotional and physical condition as she ardently continues to examine color, shape, form, and texture. Her trademark application of threaded lines accentuates the barrier and tension arising from her optimistic interpretation of deeply embedded worry. Miller is an American abstract artist whose paintings strive to merge the optical with the tactile through the language of abstraction. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

Holly Miller - Crash 1, 2017. Acrylic, graphite and thread on canvas. 50.8 x 50.8 cm.

Richard Caldicott - Untitled 176

Widely celebrated for his series featuring Tupperware, Caldicott challenges photographic codes of representation as he employs traditional photography methods to create mesmerizing abstract work of a vibrant, colorful palette. Untitled 176 reflects his minimalist approach that balances between transparency and saturation and that is concurrently self-allusional and externally referential. Caldicott is an English artist who explores abstract photography and creates abstract compositions on paper. He lives and works in London.

Richard Caldicott - Untitled 176, 2000. C print. 127 x 101.6 cm.

Deanna Sirlin - On Again

On Again is a stunning mixed media piece of layered, sensual colors and upbeat, complex textural surfaces. Sirlin meticulously explores how texture and composition affect color relationships but moreover, what is discernable between the visible aspect of these relationships. The perplexing, contemplative tone inhabits On Again the invites new and exciting perceptions of our interaction with the world. Sirlin is an American abstract artist best known for her gestural paintings and monumental installations. She lives and works on a horse farm outside of Atlanta, Georgia.

Deanna Sirlin - On Again, 2015. Mixed media on unstretched canvas. 86.4 x 212.1 cm.

Jessica Snow - Long Color Stack 1

Long Color Stack 1 discloses Snow’s scrupulous exploration of how color affects the compression and weight of line as she applies playful, bright colors in tranquil linear form. The initial cacophony of hues that this rainbow palette invokes is dissolved in the visual weight of the white structure that defines the form and provides light. The piece captures the studiousness of her preparation and her intent to create spontaneous and intuitive work. Snow is an American abstract artist whose paintings and drawings are distinguished by colorful and playful geometrics. She is based in San Francisco.

Jessica Snow - Long Color Stack 1, 2014. Acrylic on paper. 31.8 x 76.2 cm.

Macha Poynder - Other Voices

Other Voices exemplifies Poynder’s fluid, intangible and ample touch where gesture, line, color, and spaces converge in an unprecedented experience of expanded perception. She blends automatic drawing, performative gestures, and intuitive color choices to resurface the most primordial aspects of her unconsciousness. The evident randomness meets the trained precision as multiple layers and colors reveal the complexity and impenetrable mysteries of the world. Poynder is a Russian-born, Paris-based artist whose multi-disciplinary oeuvre is inspired by the philosophies and aesthetic principles of Abstract Expressionism.

Macha Poynder - Other Voices, 2011. Oil on un-stretched canvas. 189 x 250 cm.

Discover More Colorful Abstract Artworks!

Featured image: Paul Snell - Intersect # 201704, 2017, installation view.
By Jovana Vuković