For years I could not create abstract artwork. Or at least not work that was good. It all seemed too random to me... I wasn't creating shapes for no reason that made sense to me and so I had trouble feeling passionate about these senseless shapes.
But last spring I found my artwork evolving farther and farther away from representation. I suppose it actually started much earlier with these type of drawings/prints I began to make with oil pastels;
 |
| Malia Reeves: "Sibyl" - 2010 - Oil Pastel on Paper |
The figure, forever my visual inspiration, continued to play an important role in my painting as well. However, when I began to use the palette knife instead of a brush as my primary tool, I began to think more like the impressionists and my shapes became looser.
 |
| Malia Reeves: 2010 - Oil on Paper |
These figurative paintings continued over the next year as my use of color branched out into a more unrealistic direction.
 |
| Malia Reeves: 2011 - Oil on Paper |
In the winter of 2012, I was commissioned to paint a large painting for a BBQ restaurant in Hanover. They wanted it to be about Blues music and include figures... but not anything too realistic. I showed them my palette knife portraits like the one above and they agreed that was acceptable. But the size of the piece, the combination of geometric and organic shapes, and the unusual color palette I chose to use made it into the most 'abstract' piece I'd created yet.
 |
| Malia Reeves: "Memphis Blues" - 2012 - Commission for 3 Guys BBQ,- Oil on Panel - 156''x41'' |
The enormity of the Blues project left me desiring something more simple and requiring less thought. and so I began to do what I now call Contour paintings. They evolved out of oil pastel drawings I'd been doing at that time. Although at first glance they seemed quite abstract, the figure was still quite obvious and central to the entire painting for me.
 |
| Malia Reeves: "A Kiss" - 2012 - Oil and Newspaper |
When the repetitive nature of the contour paintings began to wear on me I lept happily back to the palette knife and began to layer my paint thick and vibrant. The Phrensy series was based on the observation of my own reflection. Frantic mark making and acrid colors create an image that may not resemble a self-portrait to many. But for me, each mark still began as an observation of real life.
 |
| Malia Reeves: "What I've Seen" - 2012 - Oil on Panel |
This might be where the line between abstraction and representation gets drawn. It's never been clear in my work but somewhere in this series, I discovered that when my portraits accumulated enough paint and color, they began to no longer be about the figure at all. They became purely about form and composition... they became abstract.
 |
| Malia Reeves: "Essence Series" - 2012 - Oil on Paper |
And so, I came to find a joy in creating abstraction for itself, with no figuration or item from the real world connected to it. It's a challenge and I still venture into the world of representation often to remind myself that I can. But I've come to enjoy paint as a material so much, my painting now often become about nothing more than the fleshy, heavy, vibrant substance of oil paint itself.
 |
| Malia Reeves: 2012 - Oil on Canvas |
