John Kluchka's 30+ years' observation of digital culture's maturing influence, both in imagery and artifice, reveals a daunting human stimulus. Over time, this cache built and developed into an artistic RESET button, transforming the elements of visual stimuli into a meditative experience Kluchka describes as Abstract Meditation.
Process: John’s practice imagines a topology of individual colors as individual living elements ready for release into a digital vacuum. The visual silence gives each individual the freedom to interact, creating a synthesis of color that is unique and fleeting. The colors' dance is captured at massively high-resolution to create a color simulacra, recorded into a deep (32-bit) color map. This process captures each ripple and wave made by the colors' interplay. If the observed moment creates a meditative spark, it’s recorded as an Abstract Meditation. It's an iterative process with rare results - a gift of chance, color, math and meditation.
Visual Experience: When Abstract Meditation works are viewed from a distance, our brain tries to find something it recognizes, like shapes in clouds. But eventually our minds relax and allow the subtle or intense color dance to breathe clarity and calm into our tortured wellness. Our hyper-real visual expectations are challenged, cognitive spaces are cleared of static and distraction. Our eyes find…nothing, drawing our attention away from representation and giving us freedom of movement.
Most viewers get up close for a moment, and they see the recorded artifacts of color’s ability to tell a story using a language we’ve never seen and get lost in a seemingly infinite complexity. You can see the map and start to understand how colors’ push and pull became, for just a moment, an Abstract Meditation.
Presentation: The Abstract Meditations are presented with a wide variety of visual media, typically with ink on a substrate like silk, aluminum or paper. Some are exclusive 1-of-1 commissions, while others are produced as textile, wall coverings or framed artworks for commercial or residential applications.
What did we just experience?
Artistically, John transforms colors’ own agency into meditative practice. Our visual minds turn away from representation and allow a bigger “picture” to exist, leading us to seek broader understanding within ourselves.
Artistically, John transforms colors’ own agency into meditative practice. Our visual minds turn away from representation and allow a bigger “picture” to exist, leading us to seek broader understanding within ourselves.
Artistic context - where does this fit in the art and meditation world?
As individual works became collections, and collections became a catalog of work spanning wide ranges of color and emotion, John termed the resulting work as Abstract Meditation - inspired by Metta Meditation and a reflection on the intensive creative process (and math) behind each piece. As examples of modern Minimalism, Abstract, Non-Objective or Op art, the work is at home in commercial, hospitality, exposition, residential, therapeutic and mindfulness settings. Abstract Meditation pieces are also well-suited to textiles, wallpapers, weavings, rugs, and framed as fine artwork.
As individual works became collections, and collections became a catalog of work spanning wide ranges of color and emotion, John termed the resulting work as Abstract Meditation - inspired by Metta Meditation and a reflection on the intensive creative process (and math) behind each piece. As examples of modern Minimalism, Abstract, Non-Objective or Op art, the work is at home in commercial, hospitality, exposition, residential, therapeutic and mindfulness settings. Abstract Meditation pieces are also well-suited to textiles, wallpapers, weavings, rugs, and framed as fine artwork.