February 26, 2016

"And when I see you, I really see you upside down."

Feb 26, 2026

Adda Jones, *Untitled*, Acrylic on Canvas, 23 x 30 in. at Parlour Gallery

Hi!

Last week I was explaining the difference between abstract and non-objective art to a software guy. He was using abstract to mean “It doesn’t look like anything.”

-It’s a fun distinction, Sachet.

-How do you know the difference, Emily?

Sometimes, I told him, it’s obvious—I was picturing George Braque. You see shapes alluding to a bottle or an apple, enough to know the simplified geometry around it represents a table, a space, other objects. Fast forward and You have Josef Albers saying the subject is a square and the idea of a square (rather than a physical object you can set on a table next to an apple).

If a painting contains just flat geometric shapes, how can you tell if it’s abstract or non-objective?

Cool question, Sachet.

There are hints. The title provides one.

And there are others hints. (like perspective and other devices that create the illusion of physical space. I’ll say a little more below).

Anyway, this sent me not so much down a rabbit hole but a warren of artists and our wild and pretty legacy of paintings.

I found Saloua Raouda Choucair whose work I had not known. And I thought about the fantastic exhibition of Jordan Ann Craig’s paintings at Tulane last fall. Oh geometry.

One more thing. I’m going to go offline (as much as possible) for a couple or few weeks. I’m looking for a break from words, to let the sand of them settle. If I’m not showing up here, or on Instagram, or other word hangouts, no need to call Keith Morrison.

All Good Things,

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Adda Jones at Parlour Gallery

Adda Jones Left: *In the Studio* Acrylic on canvas, 24x30in, Right: *Untitled* Acrylic on canvas, 24x30in.

Where were we…?

Yes so I was telling the software guys there are clues about a painting’s (or artist’s) preoccupation—abstract or non-objective—in the title. Here, in two works hung side by side at Parlour Gallery, Adda Jones walking the line. In the Studio suggests that the subject is an interior. We know—or suspect with confidence—that it’is an interior because of perspective, an illusion of space created by lines or edges angled to merge at a horizon line (not visible in a short-depth interior). And there is what looks like a shadow from a recess in the ceiling. From the title, it’s confirmed that this is an interior and the artist wants us to know what kind of interior. (There a subtle shift in the lay the painting lands if it were titled Bedroom or just Inside. Just a note: there is a slight wonk in the perspective, not quite conforming to its principles. This gives the wall slight Looney Tunes aura as does the color.

Untitled leaves a little more up in the air. It’s giving some mixed messages. It’s kiiinda interior-y. That horizontal line almost looks like a planar object, like a shelf, and its shadow. Loony-Tunes-wise, the white could be a floor and the black, the walls. Then we have the red and green creating a break in the language of flat color (while also staying with it). Untitled is the more mysterious of the two from the title inward to the conflicting conventions of geometric abstraction, perspective, and painting the illusion of light and solidity.

Some paintings by Saloua Raouda Choucair

As I mentioned, I wasn’t familiar with this artist before. See how the first image looks like abstracted space? (The palette would lead me to guess exterior but it could also suggest interior) The second—see the title?—a more intangible “thing,” like music, a composition. And the third: mixed messages.