Art: Johnny Abrahams' mindbending paintings explore the innate possibilities of line

Romping through some fellow creative blogs recently I was stopped in my tracks over on But does it float? by the mindbending geometric paintings of Johnny Abrahams. Information about the New York-based artist is sparse on his own website but a little bit of digging uncovered an artist statement in which Johnny talks about making the viewer the subject of his work.

“Beginning each piece with a grid, I can either express that structure or divide it into smaller, increasingly intricate geometries to form a progressively finer language of elements,” he says. “Put into high-contrast figure-ground relationships, these reduced elements become vibratory, and they destabilise the fixed gaze. After images of colour are generated as light is broken into its constituents by the interaction of the graphic relationships.”

Of course on aesthetic grounds alone the paintings are tremendous, but reading Johnny’s insights you develop a renewed appreciation of what he is trying to achieve.