Finding the “innate language of the painted art” is the central aim of Thomas Ab-e’s work. A master of color, light and composition, he creates a world filled with strikingly physical people. Human flesh is painstakingly rendered, and the facial expressions Ab-e captures tell stories that range from the surreal to the ethereal. The figures in his paintings have an inner glow that one associates with Renaissance images. That glow extends to his backgrounds, which pull off the difficult trick of being simultaneously abstract and physically believable. His juxtapositions of light and shadow give even flat expanses of color a vibrant physicality and form. Ab-e says that “directing the nature of the observer’s fantasy” is also something he tries to do in his work. By creating such believable human forms, he pulls us into his images, giving the viewer a compelling hook that makes us willingly follow him into any of the worlds with which he presents us.
Ab-e, who was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, now lives and works in the Netherlands.