because an image speaks volumes in an instant.

(click on image to see a larger photo)
Untitled by Noel Barnett                 48″ x 60″                 Tempera on Canvas

You were asking what the title of the piece is. But there is no title. In fact, I don’t put titles on a lot of the work I do.

Why? Because when it comes to abstract art, the work can speak to many different people in many different ways.

You can have a hundred people look at a specific piece and you could conceivably have a hundred different reactions to it. The meaning, feeling, and emotion that’s generated can be strikingly different from one person to the next.

So for me, by titling or “labeling” a piece you end up “putting it in a box”, so to speak. Then that piece becomes something specific. Which limits your imagination and the possibilities of what the piece could be or mean.

I like to leave it open to each individual looking at the piece to determine what it means to them without any outside influence telling them what it’s supposed to mean. That make sense?

Noel Barnett is a member of the Talisman Gallery at 1476 NE Alberta Street in sunny Portland, Oregon.

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