Minimalism: Less is More !

The drive toward Minimalism in abstract art is as old as abstraction itself. Seurat was on its trail when he pioneered Divisionism. Malevich nearly perfected it with his Suprematist compositions. Sonia Delaunay expanded its parameters when she isolated color as subject. And Yves Klein redefined it when he proved that sometimes art need not be visible at all.

One test for whether you are a Minimalist is if you see the irony in the famous advice from Thoreau, « to simplify, simplify”. Reduce. Edit. Pare down what you want to say to its essentials. Minimalist foodies take pleasure in the gastronomic depth of a single ingredient. Minimalist musicians relish the sonic timbre of a single note. Minimalist decorators declutter. And Minimalist artists heed the wisdom of Donald Judd, that, “A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself.”

Here is a selection of Minimal works, ranging from the distilled language of form and color in Gong (Trane) by Brent Hallard, to the pared down geometry of Winter Tulip 2 by Elizabeth Gourlay, to the organic clarity of Untitled (ID. 1289) by Fieroza Doorsen, which demonstrate the vivid range of Minimalist expression alive in contemporary abstraction, and prove that to simplify does not mean to be simplistic.