Art Drop 005

Our fifth Art Drop looks at the blurred boundary between abstraction and figuration through the work of four of our favourite contemporary painters. Each paints gestural marks and amorphous shapes, but their work is not quite abstract. They borrow from the visual language of abstraction to make works that are ultimately representative.

In Fred Ingrams' acrylic paintings of England's Fenlands and Scotland's Flow Country purple skies, crowds of plants and flat horizon lines threaten to pull the landscapes into abstraction.

Lisa-Marie Price's work seems more abstract at first glance, but the land is also part of her work. She paints undulating patterns in watercolours made from foraged natural pigments, meaning that her paintings don't just represent landscapes but are made of them.

The two small-scale oil paintings by Carrie Jean Goldsmith that we have included highlight the artist's ability to inspire emotion and contemplation in a small number of deft brushstrokes. Look at them for long enough and you will begin to see three flowers, empty rooms and dark forests.

Raised in New York and now based in Vermont, abstract expressionist Susana Aldanondo paints the city. Anyone who has experienced a busy street corner - like 20th & 7th Ave. - will relate to the cacophony of movement and sound that Aldanondo's paintings evoke.