For me, abstract works make the most direct appeal to the emotions or the psyche. Besides that, I'm often distracted by recognizable imagery when the real content of the image lies elsewhere. For example, it's a standard trope in modern art to examine the flux or the changeability of nature through a series of images of the same subject: Monet's Rouen Cathedral, Misrach's Golden Gate. I love both of these sets of work, but when I'm looking at one of the Monets, I can't help thinking about the architecture of the façade, or about what they must be serving in the café across the square. So one reason for abstraction is simply to eliminate a certain kind of distraction. I'm simply not interested—I'm only talking about my own art now—in a lot of complex ideas. To quote the artist and writer Robert Linsley, "Feeling art is better than knowing it, but feelings rapidly become knowledge. Fortunately, new feelings arrive just in time." Abstraction is a way to emphasize and to quicken the arrival of new feelings.

--John Rosewall