Photo credit: ASU Gammage program
An unexpected lesson in artistic freedom, creative courage, and the possibility of returning to the canvas.
Recently, I wrote a blog post asking a question that has intrigued me for years: When does abstract become art?
I explored artistic intention, the role of the viewer, the influence of museums and galleries, and whether a painting needs to communicate something recognizable to have meaning.
I approached the question from the perspective of both an artist and an observer. I wanted to understand why some abstract works move us deeply while others leave us wondering what, exactly, we are supposed to be looking at.
Then, tonight, something happened that made the question much more personal.
I went as Gary’s guest to ASU Gammage to hear Australian artist and former stand-up comedian Sam Kissajukian present his extraordinary story of becoming a painter.
I expected an interesting evening about art.
I didn’t expect to leave wondering whether it was time to take my paints out again.
An Artist Who Didn’t Ask Permission
Sam’s journey into painting was anything but conventional.
After ten years as a stand-up comedian, he walked away from a profession in which he had become successful at giving audiences what they wanted, but increasingly disconnected from what he wanted to express. He found himself living and working in a former cake factory in Sydney, with little formal artistic training and virtually no experience painting.
And then he decided to become an artist.
There was something wonderfully liberating about that decision. He didn’t wait to master perspective, composition, color theory, or the rules of contemporary art. He didn’t begin by asking what galleries might accept or what collectors might purchase.
He simply began creating.
His first paintings were unconventional, sometimes absurd, often enormous, and filled with the kind of visual imagination that doesn’t seem particularly interested in obeying anyone else’s rules.
I found myself thinking about how often artists do precisely the opposite.
We learn techniques. We develop styles. We become proficient with particular tools. We begin to understand what works, what sells, what galleries accept, and what audiences appreciate.
And somewhere along the way, those things can become boundaries. Not necessarily bad boundaries. Technical knowledge and discipline are valuable. But what happens when proficiency becomes predictability?
What happens when we stop experimenting because we already know how to produce something that works?
The Freedom to Make Something That Doesn’t Make Sense
One of the most entertaining aspects of Sam’s presentation was his willingness to take an idea far beyond what most people would consider reasonable. When someone suggested that his paintings were too large, he created tiny versions. Then he built elaborate miniature environments around them.
When he became interested in framing, he began exploring whether the frame itself could become more important than the artwork. He imagined museums that defied conventional architecture, paintings that existed within other paintings, and artistic experiences that deliberately challenged the expectations of the viewer. Some ideas were ingenious. Others were impractical. Some were hilariously unsuccessful.
But I was fascinated by the underlying question.
Why must an artistic idea be practical before it deserves to be explored?
In my own work, I have become very comfortable with digital techniques. Photography, Photoshop, layering, compositing, and digital manipulation allow me to create images that would have been extremely difficult to produce through traditional methods.
I enjoy that process enormously.
But digital art also offers a tremendous amount of control. I can undo an action. Change a color. Remove an element. Reposition an object. Save multiple versions. Return to an earlier composition. I can keep adjusting an image until it satisfies me.
Standing in front of Sam’s paintings afterward, I began thinking about the very different relationship an artist has with physical materials. Paint moves. Colors mix unexpectedly. A brushstroke cannot always be taken back. Texture develops through the physical interaction between the artist and the surface. Sometimes the materials contribute something that the artist never planned.
And perhaps I have been missing that.
The Artist’s Internal World
Sam’s presentation was also a deeply personal account of living with bipolar disorder. He described a six-month period of extraordinary artistic productivity that coincided with a prolonged manic episode, followed by a devastating depression. He spoke openly about the consequences, the relationships affected, and his eventual diagnosis and treatment.
What impressed me was not the idea that mental illness produces great art. That would be a simplistic and potentially dangerous interpretation of his experience. Rather, it was his determination to understand his own creative process and find a way to continue making art from a more stable place.
During the discussion afterward, he explained that he can now draw upon memories of different emotional states without needing to experience their extremes. That distinction stayed with me. Art can come from joy, grief, curiosity, frustration, imagination, or a quiet moment of observation. It doesn’t require suffering.
But it does offer us a way to communicate things that ordinary language sometimes cannot adequately express. I thought about my earlier blog post and the question of whether the viewer completes the artwork. Sam offered another dimension to that idea.
Perhaps the artist begins by trying to make something internal visible. The viewer then brings an entirely different collection of memories and experiences to the encounter. The result is not necessarily a shared interpretation.
It is a conversation between two different internal worlds.
When the Paintings Became More Than the Story
After the presentation, we moved into the lobby, where Sam had exhibited a collection of his paintings. This was an important part of the evening for me. Listening to someone describe their artistic journey is one experience. Standing in front of the actual work is another.
The paintings were large, expressive, colorful, and wonderfully unconventional. They didn’t all share the same visual style, yet there was something unmistakably personal connecting them. Sam had described a similar experience at one of his early exhibitions. Visitors saw paintings that were remarkably different from one another, but somehow recognized that they came from the same person.
I found that idea especially compelling. Artists are often encouraged to develop a recognizable style, a consistent body of work, something that identifies them immediately. I understand why. Consistency helps establish an artistic identity.
But perhaps identity doesn’t have to mean repetition. Perhaps an artist’s identity can exist in the curiosity, imagination, and choices behind the work, even when the visual results are dramatically different.
That possibility is exciting. It suggests that changing direction doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning what came before. It may simply mean discovering another part of ourselves.
A Conversation That Made It Personal
I was fortunate to have an opportunity to speak with Sam after the presentation. Gary was also part of the evening’s conversations, and it was especially interesting to hear about the practical experience of installing Sam’s large paintings in the Gammage exhibition space.
There was something delightful about the contrast between the practical realities of hanging artwork and Sam’s seemingly boundless imagination.
Where would another painting fit? Could one more piece be added? How could the space accommodate work of such scale?
These are familiar questions to anyone who has prepared artwork for an exhibition.
I have certainly faced them myself.
During our conversation, I mentioned my own artwork and my experience working digitally. We talked about the possibilities of painting and the creative choices that different media offer. What mattered most to me was not any particular technical suggestion. It was the encouragement I felt to experiment again.
I found myself talking about taking out my canvases and returning to painting.
It was a thought that had been quietly waiting in the background, but suddenly it felt much more immediate.
I didn’t leave with a new artistic formula.
I left wanting to make something.
And perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts one artist can give another.
Digital Art Isn’t the End of the Journey
I don’t see this as a rejection of digital art.
Quite the opposite.
My digital work has expanded my artistic vocabulary. It has taught me to see possibilities in photographs, to combine imagery, to experiment with abstraction, and to transform familiar subjects into something new.
I have learned an enormous amount from working with Photoshop and digital composition.
But perhaps I have begun treating the digital image as the finished destination rather than one stage of a larger creative process.
What would happen if I printed one of my digital compositions onto canvas and began painting over it?
What if I allowed acrylic paint to change the image rather than simply embellish it?
What if I stopped trying to preserve the original composition and allowed the painting to evolve into something completely different?
And what if I began with a blank canvas, without a photograph or digital design to guide me?
Those questions excite me.
They also make me a little uncomfortable.
Which may be an excellent reason to explore them.
Returning to My Original Question
So, when does abstract become art?
After this evening, I’m less interested in finding a definitive answer. I still believe artistic intention matters. I still think craftsmanship, composition, context, and the viewer’s experience all contribute to how we understand a work. But I am beginning to think that my original question may have been too focused on the finished object.
Perhaps I should also have been asking:
What happens to the artist during the act of creating?
What discoveries emerge when we allow ourselves to work without knowing exactly where we are going?
How much of our artistic identity is shaped by genuine curiosity, and how much by the expectations we have gradually accepted?
And when was the last time we made something simply to find out what might happen?
Sam’s story was extraordinary, sometimes hilarious, and at times deeply unsettling. His artistic journey is his own, and I have no desire to reproduce it. But I came away with an appreciation for his willingness to explore ideas without requiring them to fit neatly into an established artistic category. He reminded me that artistic growth doesn’t always come from perfecting what we already know.
Sometimes it comes from doing something unfamiliar.
Sometimes it comes from allowing a little uncertainty back into the process.
And sometimes it comes from remembering that we are allowed to change.
Perhaps It’s Time to Get Paint on My Hands Again
I went to ASU Gammage as Gary’s guest, expecting to enjoy an artist’s presentation and see some interesting paintings.
I came home thinking about my own studio.
About canvases.
About brushes.
About acrylic paint and texture and the possibility of making something that cannot be undone with a keyboard shortcut.
I don’t know whether my next artistic direction will be painting, digital mixed media, or some combination I haven’t yet imagined.
And for once, I’m quite comfortable not knowing.
My earlier blog post asked when abstract becomes art.
Tonight gave me another question.
What might happen if I stopped worrying quite so much about what the finished artwork should be, and simply allowed myself to create?
I think I would like to find out.
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