Abstract Composition 18 

Curator: Here we have Aurel Cojan's "Abstract Composition 18," a mixed-media work that leans into gestural painting and a whole rainbow of color. Editor: Immediately I see frenetic energy, almost like looking at wind-blown confetti, yet held within definite, if chaotic, bounds. How big is this thing? Curator: Its scale definitely contributes to that feeling, right? You could call the feeling of mixed media in that case, because it blends that sort of planned chaos of industry together, for sure. Editor: What draws me in, beyond the aesthetic impact, is thinking about the layering. I want to understand the physical application—the choices around acrylic versus, perhaps, the specific kind of ground used? Those things really define the mark-making here. Curator: Right, and thinking about materials, to me it evokes almost the raw feeling you'd get working with raw textile fiber-- where you see colors separate as though to weave their own feeling into the medium. The whole piece is so lyrical! Editor: And even the "lyrical" reading gets into the material constraints of it. "Abstract Expressionism" always felt less about expression and more about the available tools at hand. Mass-produced paint, larger canvases. It shifted what "expression" could even look like. Curator: Precisely! The lines suggest movement, almost as if Cojan aimed to capture not a fixed image, but a fleeting experience, something ephemeral given physical form. It asks us, "What is the raw stuff of emotions before they crystallize into words?" Editor: Exactly, you phrased that very well because while "emotions" always felt lofty in an Abstract Expressionist work, those base, industrialized materials of the time offer much for everyone and they, if only for the accessibility to art supplies and methods for even those with less to spare-- could give insight and meaning on these pieces on an almost equal plane. Curator: And this reminds me about how you don't need to intellectualize them-- sometimes, just *feeling* what is given in each medium is its own value. I love that. Editor: Yeah, so maybe it comes down to "labor," not in the artistic "labor" but about our cultural "labor"-- as everyday experience meets creative possibility. Thanks for sharing about this beautiful example of a piece-- that brings together two of my favorite trains of thought, for certain.