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In response to my last article 'Any Requests', one of my readers has kindly offered the following question: “What do you think about the existence of talent? Does it exist and how do you interpret it?” There is a popular notion that Talent is roughly akin to ability; that talent is something with which one is born, an innate capacity to do something extremely well. There is the familiar archetype of the 'Wunderkind', a person so naturally endowed with a particular skill that, in their early years, their prowess in the field in which they excel stretches beyond the norm. In my opinion, more than that is necessary to constitute true talent. Far more Wunderkinder fall by the wayside early in life, or simply develop their faculties in other directions, than succeed as leaders in their field. My readers know well that I tend to consider the Visual Arts in the context of other creative endeavours; writing, drama and especially, music, as I believe they all flow from the same spring. I possess a professional insight in the field of music in that I continue to teach classical piano technique and interpretation to advanced players, despite having abandoned my own concert career many years ago, in favour of the Visual Arts. One may be born with a gift; very many children are. My granddaughter, aged two-and-a-half, produces abstract paintings of which I could be proud if they were my own, and I say this without the slightest hint of irony. She does so because her spirit is free, unfettered and uncluttered, and because she has never been told or taught how to do anything. A natural sense of composition and a spontaneous delight in colour inevitably blossom, but this does not mean that she will necessarily go on to become a great artist. Like most children, she demonstrates a flair. The majority of children can sing in tune at a very young age but, a decade or less into their lives, many have lost or mislaid this ability. At the age of four, my daughter sung Berlin theatre songs by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht in German, with style, skill and accuracy, while I accompanied her at the piano. Her mother is German so she was brought up bilingual. For her it was natural to sing in German and it never occurred to us to pass her off as a prodigy. As she grew older, she expressed no interest in taking singing lessons however, nor piano nor any other instrument, and we never pushed her to do so. My daughter – now twenty-four - remains highly creative and artistic; she draws with a developed and refined technique and has done so since her teens. In this pastime and part-time career, she has honed an ability with which she was certainly born, and has gilded the lily by instilling in her art the passion and drive that can only come from a deep love for what she does. She has also shunned the stultifying strictures thrown at her while studying Art at school. (I know that one of my readers, who went to the same school and is soon to embark on an MA at the Royal College of Art, will particularly identify with this statement!) I refer then, to my reader's question: 'does talent exist?' Yes, it does, but the term has been obfuscated and diluted over time – as have, in my opinion, the words 'genius' and 'prodigy'. All three are overused. Furthermore, there is something about the adjective 'talented' that makes me shudder a little. It is often employed by commentators of scant insight to describe individuals whose achievements the commentator has no hope of emulating; in this way the adjective emerges as patronising. It is frequently misused to describe high-achieving individuals whose contribution to science, culture or sport have long ago surpassed the need for that epithet. Talent is not an apex; it is a staircase that enables us to achieve, and to excel. Despite the capacity for advancement being practically limitless, there comes a point when to describe a person as 'talented' becomes empty and lazy. To muddy the waters further, hyperbole abounds when the word 'Talent' is carelessly chosen, and here we reach the core of my own beliefs about the word. Few people are born with talent or genius, though undeniably there are exceptions. People may demonstrate and develop a gift or a flair at a young age, often progressing to an impressive degree, but this does not mean that they necessarily possess talent. Forty years ago I taught piano to a student who became good enough to be accepted into the junior department at the Royal Academy of Music. I remember her mother very sensibly and level-headedly telling me she realised that her child was not particularly musical or talented – she had simply acquired a skill, in my opinion through hard work, intelligence and good muscular-skeletal coordination. I agreed wholeheartedly. Talent is something much more. Talent is something that grows, deepens and matures from a spark that is the 'gift' or 'flair'. Talent appears when the outpourings of a person's creativity begin to manifest the divine. To exhibit a gift, one does not automatically possess talent but, without the flair, talent cannot take root. In my opinion, the emergence of talent in an individual is a kind of 'sweet spot' in artistic endeavour, a point at which there may be no turning back; one at which the flair and the gift are joined, thrillingly and mystically, by love, passion, dedication and even obsession. Talent presents itself only once the desire to take the gift into one's heart burns fiercely and cannot be extinguished. At this point, the skill that has been nurtured takes flight. It is no longer definable as an ability or a flair; it is an entity in its own right, unique, rare, precious and ineffable. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

Firstly, thank you all for your support both new and ongoing, which means a lot to me. I apologise for the relative lack of posts recently, due to family visits and some personal preoccupations. Looking at my 'stats' over the past six months that I have been writing, it is interesting to note the quite dramatic fluctuation in viewing figures between my various posts. I thought it could be interesting to invite from you, my readers, some input as to what you might like to read – any topics for discussion, and subjects related to abstract art or to art in general that you feel might provoke debate. So, I eagerly await your suggestions! Don't worry – I have plenty of subjects lined up for exploration on this page but, today, I'd like some input from you! Do write to me on the site – it could be about a specific artist, or about my own work, or indeed anything that piques your interest, artwise. Send me a comment on the site and let's start debating! In the meantime, I offer you a small meditation, a small 30 x 25 painting made this week in oils. A+S GRIBOUILLAGE (2023) - Haydn Dickenson Spring is in the air, but that doesn't have to mean pinks, yellows and greens. Blue is a colour of communication, of the mind, spirit and intellect and is thus a colour of great positivity and strength for what lies ahead. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

I am celebrating a small Blog Milestone this evening – my twentieth post since I first set virtual pen to virtual paper in August last year. Thank you so much to my followers both new and 'old' – your interest and support means so much to me. Please continue to share my posts and site – my agent wants a following of hundreds by the middle of 2023, and I'm still a long way from that. I've received such lovely reactions from many of you, about how, and what I write so yes, please keep carrying the banner! Tonight I have been musing on the subject of doodling, and its relationship to Abstract Art. I remember a 1970's BBC Radio 3 broadcast in which the musicologist Gerald Abraham opined that the late, very brief, very ethereal piano compositions by Alexander Scriabin amounted to a kind of “musical doodling”. Those of a conservative disposition, picturing by default a 'classical composer' as one who pores over a desk for months on end in order to gestate a monumental symphony, may have been aghast at this claim. I know my father, a died-in-the-wool Scriabin addict, certainly was. I however, have always felt that Abraham's words amounted to an enormous compliment. Scriabin's late piano pieces are fleeting, fluttering creations, based on a system of stretched harmonies and elusive tonality. Doodling is recognised as being a free expression of the psyche, a pictorial (or, in Scriabin's case, a musical) Stream of Consciousness. We associate Robert Motherwell – described by the wonderful Peggy Guggenheim as “very intellectual” - with enormous, cataclysmic and monolithic abstract paintings, carrying a gigantic emotional and political clout. How incredible it is then, to behold this tiny piece by the American master, which surely qualifies as doodling of the highest order – introverted yet confident, a pure, distilled essence of aleatory gesture; magnificent in its simplicity, in my opinion. BESIDE THE SEA, NO 3 - Robert Motherwell (1962) In 2016 I produced the 40 x 30 cm painting below. Characterised by minimal gestures, gouged-back marks through the board and an enigmatic blotch of red, it is roughly pinned to an old wooden stretcher. TENSION - Haydn Dickenson (2016) Shyly, I always loved this piece; and happily, my representatives agree, attaching one of the higher price tags in my collection to this diminutive linear meditation. Let's hear it for doodling! Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

While painting, I am constantly reminded of the way in which the brain 'works with itself' in calling up already-created elements in order to quote and develop them as the picture unfolds. In this way, structure is achieved. As my followers know, painting is an act during which I feel guided rather in charge; I am only partially aware of my surroundings and of external stimuli while working. I consider this state to be somewhat akin to hypnosis, a subject whose relationship to artistic creation I intend to explore in greater depth in a future article. Important structural components regularly appear in my canvases without my deliberate intervention. Often, I arrive at a point in the journey at which I know that something is 'right', but I do not know why. COME FILL MY SENSES UP - Haydn Dickenson (2020) If I'm wise, I'll stop right there; I always remember my mother, an artist herself, advising me to be on the lookout for the stage at which I should not 'fiddle around' any more with a painting! The reasons for halting the process may only become clear afterwards, once the creative dust has settled, and they are almost invariably connected with structure, composition (there are many who believe that abstract artists don't bother with composition!) and balance. Video by Lucy Dickenson My agent has generously stated that: “The energy, the light and the colours of nature constantly infuse his work – they emerge, like motivic connections in a Beethoven Sonata.” Some of my readers are musicians, and they will know to what I am referring when I speak of motivic connections. For my non-musician followers, let me explain. Motivic connections are instances of a composer either deliberately or subconsciously employing short motifs at different places in a work to bind it together, be it a classical Sonata, a freer Romantic-era piece or a contemporary one. Typically, this is achieved in a way not recognised by conventional (and potentially limiting) academic analytical approaches; such connections tend to be quite secret and hidden, but exciting and revelatory when one discovers them. Incorporated into one's listening or performance, the discovery of motivic connections can lead to a substantially elevated and more holistic understanding of the music in question. Yesterday morning I felt a strong impulse to sit at the piano to play through and practise the Fourth Ballade by Fryderyk Chopin, a major repertoire piece for me during my concert-playing days, but one that I have not practised properly for more than twelve years. I have always been aware of motivic connections in this, the most complex, noble and profound of the four Chopin Ballades. Indeed, I once discovered in a dream that all four of the Chopin Ballades are connected motivically between each other. Upon waking, I tested the dream-revelations and shared my tentative discovery with my teacher at the time who confirmed that I was correct. My subconscious made me privy to that thrilling knowledge all those years ago, but the sudden and magnetic pull of the piano yesterday morning felt like a summons to receive yet another level of comprehension of the magnificent F minor Ballade by Chopin. As I worked, I discovered even more revelatory internal connections than I had previously thought existed; suddenly, I realised why I had always interpreted particular passages in a certain way, and why that way seemed 'right'. How does all this relate to Visual Art? It relates in a way that reminds me of something often mentioned by collectors of my work – that each day, they see or feel something different in the painting, depending on the light, their mood, the time of day or year and, of course, the phases of the moon. This thoughtful and searching appreciation of a painting contrasts sharply with the lazy viewpoint that abstract art is meaningless because it does not depict something tangible. I am reminded again of Georg Baselitz's statement, quoted in my last article, that 'Reality is the Painting'. My pictures take form in a way that is guided by them and not by me, my subconscious holding a key to the door that opens onto a fresh, untouched canvas. Without structure, without connection between various elements of the painting, I believe that its emotional reverberations would be shallower. I often, though not always, have music playing in the studio while I work. On occasions I am oblivious to the music on an immediate level, but listen in a subliminal way, so deep is the creative trance into which I descend. Music, whether imagined, replayed mentally, or listened-to at the time, infuses my pictures. It influences the way in which I throw forth marks that will dance with each other, fight, make love (for painting is also a profoundly sensual act) and ultimately settle into an apparently pre-ordained balance, a composition that makes sense. ARABESQUE - Haydn Dickenson (2020) I am not the first artist to confess that sometimes I do not know what I am doing; I feel deeply privileged however, to become a channel for inspirational energy. I was struck yesterday by the way in which the development of tiny motifs in the Chopin Ballade, many of them arguably placed there not intentionally but by the composer's subconscious, find parallels in what I perceive as the emergence of structure in my paintings. I might add that the 'final marks' made on a painting may represent a rather more conscious decision, something cooked up deliberately to adjust or remedy an apparent imbalance. Because pre-meditation intrudes at this point, there is the likelihood of temporary wreckage, requiring a descent into the subconscious again; and so the cycle continues. Of course, not all of my paintings runs such an ideal creational course – you just don't see those ones! When all is well though, with a little help from my friends Music, Nature and Life with its constantly engaging struggles, I arrive at a point where Structure plays a major role in a picture's aesthetic impact. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

It is always nice to have one's words endorsed, even in retrospect! In previous articles, I have written of my firm and independent beliefs about what Abstract Art is. “When we look at an abstract painting, the object of our gaze is reality itself” (Haydn Dickenson, interviewed by Beata Piechocka, 2020). The early Theosophist-Abstractionists held similar beliefs, seeing mystical significance in certain abstract mark-making. For them, abstract pictures represented a truer and purer reality than representational ones which sought to imitate a 'real' world that they considered an illusion anyway. Yes, this is a lot to get one's head around! The 'retrospective endorsement', mentioned at the start of this article is something that I recently read; a comment by the artist Georg Baselitz (b 1938) who states that “Reality is the painting; it is certainly not in the painting”. Beginning this week's blog post with a reference to earlier articles is not entirely irrelevant. I was struck once again today, on completing a large meditational painting, of the truth of my notion that one's life, one's existence, one's psyche can be conveyed by an abstract picture in a more refined and concentrated way than it can by a representational one. BERKANA - Haydn Dickenson 2023 Art is a deeply personal form of self-expression. David Bowie was of the belief that one must be, to an extent, dysfunctional to become an artist of any type. It does indeed seem mildly perverse, at times, to expose one's soul and mind to the world at large. I tried, in the past, to circumvent this state of affairs by producing a lot of paintings entitled 'Untitled'. I wanted my abstraction to remain pure, untainted by allusion. I understand however that the public wants a 'handle' on a painting. I appreciate that abstract art can be intimidating, along the lines of 'I don't understand it'. There is something about the expression 'inspired by' that makes me cringe a little, reminding me of that (to me) strange question that I have often been asked – 'what were you thinking about when you painted it?' I accept though, albeit with a gentle sigh of acquiescence, that some referential substance can be of assistance in approaching what might seem to be a challenging, obscure, even disconcerting visual confrontation. One of my missions in writing this blog is to encourage people to become 'friendly' with abstract painting. Perhaps it does not do to establish oneself as too aloof, too impenetrable; Art after all is an expression of humanity. Humans are complex and multi-faceted beings. In contrast to the eagle traversing the sky, or the wild animal calmly grazing the hillside, our complexity can lead to torment. Creative outpouring in all genres and types may communicate joy and positivity, but it can also reflect sorrow and catastrophe. We know of the existential challenges faced by Mark Rothko, Sylvia Plath, Terence Judd, John Ogdon and so many more across diverse fields of cultural genius. For me, the creation of Art allows and encourages elements of one's subconscious to rise to the surface. In common with many people, elements from my past have the capacity to cause anguish and to present psychological and existential hurdles on a daily basis. I have written before of the need for extremes in the creative mind of an artist and, difficult though the extremes can be, I stand by this claim. Thus, painting often seems to offer an opportunity to 'scratch through the surface', to delve into deeper realms, even to confront problems. I often, literally, 'scratch back' in a painting, revealing multiple layers beneath the exterior. BERKANA, the large painting pictured above, is an example of this. Berkana is the Norse/Germanic Rune symbol associated with, among other things, birth, rebirth, healing and growth. I have this Rune tattooed on my left wrist and it feels particularly important to me this year, at a time when I am making some important decisions about my future. Berkana also refers to the Birch or Poplar tree; the Birch is one of my favourite trees. A Birch forest seems to make an appearance in this week's unfolding of my new painting, BERKANA. The numinous element in the way this canvas was channelled through me feels powerful indeed. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

As a keen enthusiast of the films of Stanley Kubrick. I had been aware of paintings by his artist wife, Christiane as seen in two of his films that I particularly admire – A Clockwork Orange and Eyes Wide Shut, but not until later was I able to see her pictures in reality, at Childwickbury Manor in Hertfordshire, UK where Christiane Kubrick still lives and works . I remember the tangible energy that emanated from these paintings, something that drew me towards them, engendering a magnetic sensation deep in the belly. Christiane Kubrick, though not an abstractionist, is a painter whose work I find profoundly expressive and communicative. I experienced a similar sensation of magnetism upon visiting the incredible Abstract Expressionism exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London late in 2016. Already punch-drunk by the sheer impact of that magnificent show I walked, mesmerised, into the final room to encounter Joan Mitchell's enormous quadtych painting, 'Salut Tom'. Created in memory of her friend, the critic and curator Thomas B Hess, there is not a shred of sombreness or sentimentality in this massive four-panel painting, which seems to erupt with joy and a celebration of life. SALUT TOM - JOAN MITCHELL (1979) Joan Mitchell is just one of the searingly powerful female abstractionists whose works move and empower me. Contemplating Mitchell's work recently, with its urgent, gestural mark-making (often produced by the artist's fingers or flung directly at the canvas straight from the tube), I was struck by the importance of female artists in the development of Abstraction. Indeed, the very origins of the abstract movement reside in the work of the pioneering Swedish artist, Hilma Af Klint. SVANEN - HILMA AF KLINT (1915) I have written in previous articles about the significance of the Theosophical Movement in the emergence of Abstract Art. Hilma af Klint. (1862-1944), herself a Theosophist is considered to be one of the pioneer abstractionists, much of her work predating that of Mondrian, Kandinsky and Malevich. Klint also exerted a notable influence on the paintings of Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) COLOR RHYTHMS - SONIA DELAUNEY The American artist Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) is best-known for her so-called 'soak-stain' canvases. An exponent of the New York Abstract Expressionist group, she was closely associated with Jackson Pollock, Hans Hoffmann and Robert Motherwell whom she married. Her work is characterised by muted, flowing, ethereal swathes of colour, demonstrating a sharp contrast to Motherwell's monolithic, elemental shapes. TUTTI FRUTTI - HELEN FRANKENTHALER 1966 Finally, in today's short and by no means exhaustive survey of female abstract artists, let us look at the work of Lee Krasner (1908-1984). UNTITLED MURAL STUDY - LEE KRASNER (1940) Lee Krasner's work carries a very powerful electricity. One of my favourites among her paintings is GOTHIC LANDSCAPE (1961), which hangs in the Tate Modern in London. I love the predominant sepia tones, accented with small areas of white paint and delicate slices of colour. Her work has, at times, been overshadowed by that of her husband Jackson Pollock, but Krasner was undoubtedly a major figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement in her own right. Also tremendously inspiring to me are the abstract and quasi-abstract works of Gillian Ayres, Barbara Hepworth with her magnificently primal sculptures, Louise Bourgeois and Vanessa Bell. “Women are the real architects of society”, wrote Harriet Beecher Stowe. We can see from the very dawning of Abstraction that it was a woman, Hilma af Klint who ignited the flame and was the true architect of that movement, to be followed by so many exceptional female artists in her wake. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

I have painted all my life. Like most children, my earliest efforts were abstract ones! I went on to draw the obligatory houses and people – nothing new there. While at the pretty hideous prep school to which I was sent (for reasons that confound me as no school could have been less suitable for a withdrawn, poetic child than this one was) I began to draw birds. My birds were extremely detailed and I was obsessed with them. I think that birds, apart from their sheer beauty (which still moves me), represented freedom; freedom from that hateful school where I felt so alone, and from the home life which was becoming more dysfunctional by the day as my father's narcissistic and controlling personality took an ever greater hold. My mother, a wonderful trained artist and teacher, nurtured my gift and soon I was painting Cézanne-inspired still lifes and rustic country scenes in the style of Constable. I adored painting and I would shiver with delight at the smell of the oil paints that I had been given for my birthday, which I kept in the little wartime leatherette case that my mother had used at art school. While I continued to paint sporadically, with occasional fevered bursts of activity when it seemed that something was trying to break through to the surface, it was not till many years later that things got serious. In the mid to late part of the first decade of this century, I was in a state of personal crisis. Among other contributory factors, I was experiencing frustration and anger with my career as a concert pianist. I had released a critically acclaimed CD of incredible piano compositions by Peter Feuchtwanger and, proudly, was becoming more and more involved with living composers who often wrote cutting-edge music for me to perform. I found the audience for this music, however, to be depressingly small, and did not want to peddle the 'best-loved-classics' to an audience who had no interest in being challenged. I saw no future in playing the piano for a living. I decided to reinvent myself. Artist friends, whose company and influence I was already enjoying and cultivating, knew of my dissatisfaction and restlessness. Three in particular held great belief in my talent in the visual arts and, quite suddenly, after a period of drawing expressive female nudes and on the advice of one friend especially, I began to produce abstract paintings with a creative intensity that I had never known before. I embarked on a series of exhibitions, including one in a new local gallery where I soon became the best-selling artist. Fast-forwarding a few years to 2010, I was forging a style and an artistic voice, and beginning to sell and exhibit in Europe as well as in the UK. I thought it might be interesting to readers to see a selection of work from the past twelve years, one painting for each year, together with a few contextual anecdotes and memories, in so far as I can recall them. Let us start then, in 2010. HOLD IT - HAYDN DICKENSON 2010 I have great affection for this mixed-media painting. It was made at a time when I was practising Tai Chi and Qi Gong, and I felt the mass of marks in the centre of the painting resembled the energy that can be felt between the hands during the practice of Qi Gong. REMEMBERING CY - HAYDN DICKENSON 2011 This picture was painted in memory of the great Cy Twombly who had recently passed away. Twombly's retrospective at the Tate Modern in London 2008 lives in my mind as one of the most phenomenal exhibitions that I have ever attended. UNTITLED - HAYDN DICKENSON 2012 Influenced by the Gutai group, I was currently experimenting with pasting extra layers of fabric on top of canvases, slashing or puncturing them, and letting the paint soak in. UNTITLED - HAYDN DICKENSON 2013 Another painting which I remember fondly. It did not take long to sell. UNTITLED - HAYDN DICKENSON 2014 By this time, I was in a passionate and beautiful but problematic long-distance relationship. Obsessive elements are starting to emerge in the painting style. DON'T BLAME US FOR MADNESS - HAYDN DICKENSON 2015 From a disturbed period, turbulence and malaise continue to be evident in this painting. ZHIVAGO REVISITED - HAYDN DICKENSON 2016 A modicum of tranquillity returns. BREAK FREE - HAYDN DICKENSON 2017 Admired by many for a while, and later sold to an overseas buyer. SUSPENDED ANIMATION - HAYDN DICKENSON 2018 Sold to a collector of my work in London. FACE UP TO THE FACTS - HAYDN DICKENSON 2019 I have always been pleased with the wild expressionism of this piece. SPEAK YOUR MIND - HAYDN DICKENSON 2020 A notable minimalism appears in this as yet unsold piece. HAYDN DICKENSON - A STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION 2021 Another unsold picture, and a personal favourite of mine. EMERGENT INTIMACY - HAYDN DICKENSON 2022 Another favourite of mine, but not for the faint-hearted. This painting's energy is quite overwhelming to many. I hope that this survey of the past twelve years has been interesting. I had to stop at twelve years, for 2023 has only seen one completed painting as yet! Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

Ok, I'm biased. I am an abstract artist. I do a little figurative work – I used to do a lot more – sensual nude studies, mainly to commission; but it is through my abstract canvases that I am chiefly known, and it is through this avenue that success has come. LIBERATION - Haydn Dickenson (2022) Because abstraction is my passion, my constant creative preoccupation and my soul's direction, making art is naturally an intellectual and spiritual food for me. Thinking about this recently, I began to cogitate upon the notion that Abstraction is of especial benefit in enabling us to enter a world relatively untainted by the upsetting and disturbing quotidian aspects of twenty-first century life. We are surrounded by war, famine, a pandemic, a cost of living crises, a fuel crisis, corrupt politicians and more. These horrors are real, but they are also amplified by the mass media which, controlled by a global elite, seeks to frighten the population into submission. This debilitating negativity, by which we seem to be increasingly bombarded, must be balanced by positivity. Stephen Hawking* tells us that, in astrophysics “the positive and the negative add up to zero, always”. Thus it is in life. Zero is equilibrium. I suffer from severe mood swings and, while the dark episodes can be terrifying and disabling, without them I could not experience the elation that is on the other side of the coin, nor the 'zero' of tranquillity that can bring solace – though I cannot produce communicative Art if the sea in which I float is unremittingly calm! Art is capable of delivering positivity, optimism and joy to our lives; for me, this is especially the case with Abstraction. HOPE IN DARK TIMES - HAYDN DICKENSON (2020) Without the Old Masters there would be no Abstraction, just as (and I have written here before on this subject) Mondrian's rarefied geometry could not have existed but for his Tree Studies that preceded them, or Picasso's Cubism without his Blue Period predating that revolutionary trajectory. Visiting galleries, I stand in profound reverence and admiration before the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, El Greco, Turner et al. I deeply admire and respect colleagues who are the producers of superb representational art; certain landscapes remind me of my earliest days in the world of painting when, encouraged by my mother, I would sit and paint in the fields, or draw village scenes. All this is the basis of everything. Some representational art, however, can make me sad. Nostalgia or, to use that wonderful German word 'Sehnsucht' is apt to creep in. I wonder whether, perhaps, idyllic scenes of landscapes and rural life do enough to transport us away from the worldly horrors that cloud our current experience. The beauty of a landscape painting can often seem heartbreaking to me. Urban vistas may present a rawness to balance the bucolic idyll, but these too can remind us of deprivation and hardship, of dwindling resources, sorrow and desperation. Conversely, abstract art presents its own dimensions; ones full of resonances and symbols. The earliest theosophist-abstractionists believed that marks and shapes contained spiritual significance more replete with 'reality' than the representational art which they considered to be an imitation of something that was already an illusion. Abstraction can lead us into a world where dreams or even a semi-hypnotic state are close-by. Like walking through the wardrobe into CS Lewis's Narnia, in a brief moment we find ourselves transported into a realm of pure visual beauty, of shapes that are exquisite in their own right, of marks than carry their own excitement and passion while remaining at least partly free of allusion. My own abstract pictures have been described, on occasion, as 'sexy' while still qualifying as Pure Abstraction: also, variously, as poetic, musical, joyous and disturbing. Robert Motherwell tells us that “the function of abstraction is to get rid of reality”. In lifting ourselves onto another plane when we look at Abstract Art, simpler, purer and perhaps more spiritual resonances flood our senses. PLAY PEACEFULLY - HAYDN DICKENSON (2017) Picasso believed that an abstract piece cannot 'begin with nothing'. I do not entirely agree, and am once again reminded of Stephen Hawking's assertion that, when you travel “...down to the sub-atomic level, you enter a world where conjuring something out of nothing is possible”. Of course I am employing a degree of poetic licence in borrowing from Professor Hawking's theories and applying them in an artistic context but, as my readers will know, my creative process invariably begins with virtually no preconception at all. This is why I make the analogy. On the other hand, non-representational Art, once it is complete and alive on the canvas, can be suggestive, presenting marks so simple yet stimulating that whole worlds are conjured up when we engage with them. A valued collector of my work generously wrote the following about my painting, A SAFE HAVEN: “I purchased Safe Haven in February 2021 and it is the third of Haydn Dickenson’s pieces that I have bought. I don’t tend to buy much abstract art but in the case of Safe Haven I was immediately drawn to it as it reminded me of the South West Coast Path near Bude in Cornwall. I have been a regular visitor to the area since I was a little girl and very much enjoy walking along the coastal path – it’s the contrasting colours, the sound of the Atlantic Ocean crashing against the cliffs and the vastness of it – it makes me feel so free but also reminds me of just how insignificant we all are and how unimportant our everyday worries really are. Because of the Pandemic it had been a while since I had visited Bude – and I missed it! On seeing this reflective painting, I felt all the things I feel while walking along the coastal path and for that reason I just had to have it! I was also extremely taken by the title of the piece, Safe Haven because although I like trying new things, I also really value security as it enables me to challenge myself knowing that I have somewhere to retreat back to if everything falls apart. The painting continues to give me a lot of comfort and I am thrilled with it.” A SAFE HAVEN - HAYDN DICKENSON (2020) In this way, abstraction offers a world richly brimming with fantasy and imagination. Whether we cross the divide into a soothing visual panacea, or into a vibrant bombardment of the senses, this is why we need Abstract Art today. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023 *BRIEF ANSWERS TO THE BIG QUESTIONS - Stephen Hawking, 2018, pub John Murray

As my regular readers are aware, I am largely self-taught, and proud of it. I painted from a very young age, encouraged by my mother who was an artist. At sixteen, I won the Art Prize at my school which, by a lovely coincidence, was the one attended much earlier by a hero of mine, the British abstractionist Patrick Heron. Perhaps I was unconsciously motivated by some of Heron's energy, retained within the school's hallowed walls, his quest for 'Pure Visual Beauty' being a concept that I find fundamentally inspiring. I did not attend Art College however, so my approach and style have been forged principally by me. Not for me then, the philosophies and diktats of teachers keen to instil a particular direction in their students; I did it, in the words coined by Sinatra, 'My Way'. In a 2020 interview with the Artist and gallery owner Beata Piechocka, it was suggested to me that “It has been stated that true or pure abstraction does not exist, because everything has its origin in reality.” My response was as follows: “What is reality? When we look at an abstract painting, the object of our gaze is reality itself – the artist's heart laid bare on the physical canvas. In contemplating nature, our minds and souls can drift into subconscious realms – are these real or are they imagined? In the same way, we can see abstraction in the infinite patterns of nature, notwithstanding that nature exhibits a divine order. When I paint shapes, the viewer may see echoes of finite, concrete objects or beings; but when I make that line, I am most content when it exists for a reason no more or less great than the sheer joy of its creation, unfettered by concrete references." BEYOND DIMENSIONS - HAYDN DICKENSON (2019) Pursuing my own creative wanderings without intervention, I have arrived at some personal (albeit mutable) artistic and philosophical revelations. In recent times though, as my career has begun to ascend, I have read more and more voraciously about Art and Artists, Philosophers, Psychologists and Humanists, as well as thought more deeply than before about how my life and my art mingle, and about what Abstraction really is. As an abstract artist I do, after all, continue to encounter a degree of prejudice! I need to be prepared with some answers to niggling questions! Reading about Piet Mondrian recently, I was excited to discover some of this ground-breaking abstractionist's thinking. Mondrian espoused Theosophical beliefs, one of these being that everything we see around us is an illusion. In his view, a picture that is purely abstract is truer to the actual reality (that is at the root of everything) than a picture that attempts to capture an illusion of reality, for example, a landscape. I often recall, with amusement, Willem de Kooning's assertion (and I paraphrase) that there can be nothing more ridiculous than to attempt to imitate a nose in painting! Returning to Mondrian, there are similarities in his opinion to those of Kandinsky, another follower of Theosophy, who felt that Art has the potential to be higher than Nature. COMPOSITION WITH LARGE BLUE PLANE, RED, BLACK, YELLOW, AND GRAY - PIET MONDRIAN (1921) I find it thought-provoking and fascinating that, before his shift to geometric abstraction, Mondrian painted exquisite studies of trees! It is my opinion that his unique abstract pictures (themselves imbued with Theosophical tenets) could not have existed without his trees preceding them. EVENING: THE RED TREE - PIET MONDRIAN (1910) I do not consider the majesty of Nature to be surpassable; I have written before of the impact that the Natural World has on my pictures and I align more closely to Sean Scully's view, that “We are all part of Nature. We are not better than Nature. We are the children of Nature”. I do find myself struck, however, by the degree to which Mondrian's words regarding Abstraction and Reality resonate with my own discoveries. I quote from myself in the interview mentioned above: “When we look at an abstract painting, the object of our gaze is reality itself...” In his PEDAGOGICAL SKETCHBOOK of 1925, the abstract pioneer Paul Klee (incidentally, accused by the Nazis of 'distorting reality') wrote of “An active line on a walk. Moving freely, without goal. A walk for a walk's sake...” To quote my own words once more, I have reached a standpoint similar to Klee's in my personal journey: “When I make that line, I am most content when it exists for a reason no more or less great than the sheer joy of its creation”. With several notable abstractionists I also share the belief that simple marks can hold primal and symbolic meaning. In this way, those abstract gestures in line, tone and hue surely emerge as the purest reality. CLOUDS IN THE WAY OF THE SKY - HAYDN DICKENSON (2022) Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2022

“This is one of those paintings that I would see in an exhibition that would make me stop and look. Not because it hit me between the eyes, but rather because it would whisper in my ear and then I would need to spend some time sussing out what is really so damn intriguing about it.” So wrote my colleague, the artist Royce Deans, in 2017 about one of my recent paintings, illustrated below. UNTITLED - Haydn Dickenson (2017) I was, and still am, delighted and flattered to read Royce's words, for this is one of the most satisfying kinds of reaction that an abstract artist can receive. The nature of abstraction is that the art is elusive. It is suggestive and evocative, one would hope, but at the same time releasing its information sparingly, secretively, in a tantalising and none-too-constant trickle. Of course, there is often an initial visceral hit, that impact that a painting has upon the viewer that draws them in; in my case, this is frequently an ambiguous quasi-tactile sensation experienced, naturally, without me touching the piece. It is a kind of physical-visual encounter with the painting's core that I can feel under my fingertips as well as inside my body and with my eyes. The real story, however, begins to unfold afterwards, gently, seductively, persuasively. I always hope for my own paintings be liveable-with in a way that enriches the soul, that they will continue to deliver over a lifetime, that they may continue to fascinate and to challenge, rather than that they relax into a state of innocuous visual muzak after an initial blousy fanfare. What I hope to present to the viewer is an unfolding tableau, a kind of 'slow reveal'. A similarly 'slow-revealing' artist about whom I have recently been reading is the remarkable Portuguese-British Paula Rego who passed away only last June at the age of 87. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/paula-rego-ra Rego's exceptionally powerful figurative works tend to illustrate a disturbing and fractured world. She is often referred to as 'a painter of stories', these narratives drawing on traumatic childhood happenings; in Rego's own words, “dark secrets, compromise and betrayal”. As a frequent sufferer from nightmares myself, I strongly identify with Paula's adoption of bad dreams as an influence in her deeply stirring work. “You can do things in pictures that you can't do in life, ever”, she has said, suggesting, in their “slow disclosure” as the critic Robert Hughes has identified it, a back-story of notable violence and trauma. I have been told that my own work also contains disturbing elements. I do not particularly see this, perhaps because, for me, creating art brings about a degree of catharsis in relation to my own troubled past. A client has written of the painting that she commissioned from me earlier this year: “Every time I look at it, I see something new, like the reflected shapes on the right. Maybe a far-off mountain, caught in the fading sunlight? That said, I love its ambiguity.” And some lovely words from another collector: “Like so many of Haydn's pieces it always feels new - as if he's only just finished painting and left the room.” I will finish by quoting Robert Hughes once more, “Art does not need to make an immediate impact to have value”. I would go further and suggest that the impact of good art, whether instantaneous or delayed, may produce reverberations which are as prolonged as they are profound. APOTHEOSIS - Haydn Dickenson (2019) Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2022

Back in the late 1970's an incandescent recording of Alexander Scriabin's Fourth Piano Sonata was released by the Russian pianist Andrei Gavrilov. An aspiring pianist at the time, and raised by my father on a musical diet in which Scriabin figured as the principal protein, I was pretty obsessed with the Fourth Sonata, though dubious about some of the composer's's later works which I considered excessively ego-driven and priapic in conception. I had been left underwhelmed by recordings of the Fourth Sonata by several well-known pianists (Sofronitsky's incomparable vintage reading had not yet become available). Under Gavrilov's visionary hands however, at last the sensual, langorous opening, and the way it exploded into the 'presto volando', finally succumbing to the orgiastic fever of F sharp major (bright blue in Scriabin's colour language), suddenly made absolute sense. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=scriabin+4th+sonata+gavrilov Concurrent with the recording being issued, Gavrilov gave a rare radio interview. Speaking in gentle, persuasive tones which belied the fury of his playing, he expressed the opinion that all musicians should seek to study other art forms from the epochs of composers whom they are studying, something with which I have always agreed. In particular, he cited that pianists studying Scriabin should know about the paintings of Kandinsky. PAINTING WITH GREEN CENTRE - Wassily Kandinsky (1913) Extremely interesting to me is that both Scriabin and Kandinsky were drawn to Theosophy, a deeply spiritual movement embracing, among other concepts, reincarnation, universal brotherhood and social improvement. Thereafter however, their paths appear to diverge. Kandinsky had read the writings of Rudolf Steiner, including his proposal that we all inhabit several bodies including the astral, which is invisible. He believed that Art could be 'higher than Nature' and, most interestingly to me, he was deeply drawn to simplicity and primitivism in Art. The almost psychedelic abstraction of Kandinsky's late work does indeed echo aspects of Scriabin's flights of fantasy, but his early paintings embody a disarming simplicity. MURNAU, BURGGRABENSTRASSE 1 - Wassily Kandinsky (1908) Scriabin meanwhile, seemed increasingly drawn to high-flown ideas of an all-embracing and, as it happened, unfulfilled artistic utterance, to be named 'The Mysterium', in which all creative forms would be united. The composer Cyril Scott, himself a follower of Theosophy, has stated the following: “Various forms of pantheism, including Eastern religions and theosophy, propose that nature has an indwelling intelligence. Scriabin's harmonic system, especially Prometheus, therefore has an almost inhuman quality about it. Scott says that Scriabin was not under the supervision and protection of a spiritual teacher and that his mysterious death from a pimple was due to his inability to handle the strain he was under from contacting the higher intelligence of nature”. Perhaps Scriabin stepped off an artistic precipice, losing contact with the simple, the humble, even the naïve, which may be at the root of all human creation. Kandinsky however, the art critic Matthew Collings tells us, “needed the primitive, the musical, and the way colour works....He liked unknown artists, as they got to the essence of the spiritual”. Most fascinatingly, Kandinsky likened painting to playing the piano, something that regular readers of this blog will know is a profound conviction of my own. HOUSES AT MURNAU - Wassily Kandinsky (1909) I possess a wonderful book, OUTSIDER ART, by Colin Rhodes (Thames and Hudson) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Outsider-Art-Spontaneous-Alternatives-World/dp/0500203342 in which Rhodes delves into the world of art produced outside the mainstream, by self-taught, untrained visionaries, spiritualists, eccentric recluses, folk artists, psychiatric patients, criminals and others beyond the imposed margins of society and the art market. There is a chapter on Art Brut (as exemplified by Jean Dubuffet), and on Art by the Insane; I am reminded of many affirmations of the fine line present between madness and sanity by, for instance, Alexander Pope, and Jean Dubuffet himself who stated that “For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity”. I would recommend this engrossing, moving and absorbing book to anyone interested in Art from beyond the orthodox path. I also feel that Kandinsky might have appreciated it for its honesty, candour and lack of snobbishness. I have always considered myself to be a person outside the mainstream. I do not fit the mould of bourgeois conformity and predictability of the affluent area in which I live. I am something of a maverick, forging my own path and casting my own mould in life, and I am proud to be so. Abstract Art is itself a burning, unpredictable flame. EPILOGUE: Alexander Scriabin, whose birthday fell on Christmas Day in the Julian calendar, considered himself to be the new Messiah. On that note, as well as on a more conventionally seasonal one, I wish a Happy Christmas to all my readers! Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2022

My regular readers, friends, colleagues and clients know that I believe all artistic outpouring to come from the same well-spring of creativity. It doesn't matter whether you are a film-maker, a poet, a painter, a musician or an actor. In every case, what is being channelled is the same human, spiritual core. I am deeply interested in how artists of any kind approach their 'canvas', be it a physical or a metaphorical one. I have recently been watching the 2015 documentary “Listen To Me Marlon”, a compelling and engrossing portrait of the actor and activist Marlon Brando. The film utilises many hours of audio material recorded by him at various points in his life, some of which were made under hypnosis. Brando comes across as a deep and beautiful soul. Reading about Brando, I was particularly fascinated to learn that he would often chat on set to cameramen and other personnel about their weekends and other ephemera, even after the director had called for action. Brando felt that, only once he could begin the dialogue with the same naturalness as that casual conversation, was he ready to commence the scene. I need to be in a similar mental state when I begin a painting. Preconception and premeditation are thrown out of the window on every occasion when I start. Frequently, I am not even looking at the canvas when I make the first mark; I liken the gesture to opening a door, whether violently or gingerly. I am reminded of the magical realm into which Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy enter when they open the wardrobe door in CS Lewis's 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. My incomparable piano teacher, Peter Feuchtwanger, taught his students that movements at the keyboard should never be premeditated, or tension would set in. He recounted how the legendary pianist Clara Haskil, when beginning to play, would make the listener feel that the piece had not 'begun', but that it had always been there, that “nothing seemed to start or end, and everything became timeless.” In a similar way, Marlon Brando's dialogue on set flowed out of his casual conversation, as if it had always been there. There is no starting-pistol in the making of Art. A drop of dew or melting snow can fall off a leaf neither too early nor too late. The other day, I went into the studio to approach work on a fresh canvas in the series of small paintings on which I am currently engaged. In the usual way, my arm uttered the first gestures, unfettered, and I was not displeased with the results; indeed the canvas still hangs there, awaiting the next move when the moment is right. Suddenly, after producing those marks, my eye was drawn to a shelf in the studio which was full of a lot of rubbish. I found myself tearing aside this years-old detritus to find a very small, forlorn and forgotten square canvas on which I had begun work, at a guess, some twelve years ago. It had been abandoned, unsatisfied and unsatisfying until I remember picking it up again some years later, revisiting it briefly but again failing to establish a connection. Since then it had languished on the shelf, with only spiders for company. When I picked it up this week however, things were entirely different. I immediately sensed a hitherto unrecognised, crackling energy in this tiny, grimy canvas. Feverishly, I dusted it down and engaged myself with it, eschewing any thought or preparation, completing the painting in one sitting. A SCENT OF NIGHT - Haydn Dickenson (2022) For me, the process of painting is akin to a state of self-hypnosis; but that is a subject for another article in which the spirit of Brando may once again be invoked.