The Abstract Art Movement of Vian Borchert

“Creativity Takes Courage” Matisse exclaimed, and I can’t agree more. I’ve been doing art all my life. Growing up in art household where the art gene has been passed on from my mother, almost every relative from my mother’s side is a skilled artist with multi talents - Art came natural to me. I was born as they say with a gift. At school, teachers, principles, and friends all encouraged me to pursue this artistic path. I remember in elementary school the students would line up so I can draw for them their favorite anime character. With those cute personalized Japanese animation drawings, I remember making my friends very happy. I fondly recall they held the drawings close to their heart as a prized possession, and even some quarreled on who gets the art. Even at such a young age, it was so delightful to see the happiness that my art brought to people’s hearts and eyes.

Move forward many years, I graduated from the Corcoran College of Art & Design, Washington, D.C. and started working professionally teaching art lessons along exhibiting world wide from the mid to late 1990’s. Some of my abstract figurative work done at that time ended up at the museum of fine arts in Jordan. Throughout my travels, I met a lot of artists from all over the world, and I collaborated in many wonderful and site specific exhibits like the one I did with French and Jordanian artists at Qasr Amra in the Jordanian desert. The work created at the ancient Qasr was later put on exhibit at the French Cultural Center in Amman under the patronage of the French cultural attaché who avidly loved the arts and created chances for artists from all diverse backgrounds to come and work together. To this day, I feel this wonderful multi cultural collaboration was one of my most favorite art experience to date.
I had always been an expressionist artist, and my art always leaned more towards abstraction rather than the traditional and realistic. In my earlier work, I had based all of my figurative expressionistic work based on models abstracting the human form with emphasis on the expression, mood and ambiance.

I had loved and still love drawing and painting the figure. Yet, in 2016 after a family reunion by the Niagara Falls and an earlier trip to the French Riviera, I had an inner self revelation and challenge to paint the nature that surrounds me and the places I remember from my vision and imagination. I had gotten to a point where I didn’t want to work with faces looking back at me – I wanted to work from nature that inspires me. It was a form of self meditation. Thus, in Summer of 2016 after coming back home to the US - I set upon myself to make abstract paintings. I called it “the abstract collection series.” Furthermore, I said these abstracts that I will do will help me in seeking a fuller sense of my inner capabilities as a professional artist. In my opinion, my abstract paintings are a form of self discovery. I had initially declared upon starting them that “an abstract a day, keeps the doctor away”. For me art is as nutritious to my soul as food is to the body. The way I see it, abstraction is a form of art that digs deep into my innermost self and utmost imagination to bring out what dwells inside my mind. As a professional artist and art educator of over 12 years experience, I had a good look at the art world throughout art history and where abstraction stood at the time. I found that I wasn’t in any away happy with what I saw. I felt that beyond the 1950’s and the 1960’s, the abstracts and more specifically the abstract expressionist style remained stagnant and stuck in the past. Albeit, I admire the works of the great giants of that era such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. Yet, I felt that the artwork remained in that era and didn’t move beyond that time. It lacked what I call a fresh look. I also looked at social media and saw that some abstract art was nothing but thrown colors done in an amateurish style with very little knowledge of what abstract expressionism is, and what even the term means.
So, I set upon myself to create the kind of abstract work that suits first and foremost my inner vision, aesthetics and taste from colors to lines to shape and form. I had vowed to myself to create the sort of abstraction that I would like to see upon visiting museums and galleries. So, I started making one abstract painting after another with only the attributes that I like. The colors that I favor such as the tones of blues and peach, the simple clean minimalist look and lines that I personally love. Hence, with my nature based abstract expressionist art that encompasses shape, geometry and painterly style I had created a whole new look in the abstract expressionism genre. A fresh, modern day, clean look for what I call my “painterly abstracts”. I have always been a very private person and still cherish my privacy. Yet, around that time, a friend of mine advised me to add Instagram to my social media accounts, and get my art out there. In general, I didn’t favor taking that route of Instagram since I read about many stories of people and artists copying the works of other artists and selling it as their own with no credit whatsoever to the artist who originally made the work. Yet, I obliged and opened an account. For me the account was initially an experiment of how people react and respond to the work I create. I started posting these daily abstracts, and the second I would post them, I would be met with “Wows”, “Great”, “these are something else”, “we love your abstracts”, “You’re so talented”, and so on and so forth. So, it was a good out-pour of positive messages about my abstracts. People and especially other artists were obviously taken with my new style and my abstract vision. Thence, galleries, collectors, and venues started approaching me about my work followed by exhibits and more exhibits.
In these few years from the time I created my new abstract expressionistic art, my abstract vision has taken the art world by storm. I felt the waiting hungry eyes who devoured every single creation I made by studying my paintings from left to right with every single brush stroke. With my vision and creation, it was crystal clear that my abstract expressionist style had created waves in the art world. I had not in any way set up to create a major trend in the abstract world. Yet, evidently I had done such a thing. My clear vision and abstracts based on the woods by my house and the travels from waterfalls to seascapes became the new abstract expressionist art. Even my favorite colors of blues, peach and turquoise tones became other artists major inspiration and new choice of color palette. My art movement has become so loved and so big that artists world wide from aspiring overnight social media turned artists to mid career and established artists are inspired by my art and its elements. My art took off much like a domino effect.
Like Monet, I find myself creating the world that I love to paint. Interestingly enough, my new abstracts become a major inspiration for other artists, plus my abstracts have changed the look of the current and modern art world.
As a working woman artist, I know that I have made history and quite precisely art history in a very short period of time. I wish and hope though as a female artist that the world would give more proper credit to the artist.
Overall, my journey in art is truly a form of personal growth. I see that my signature abstract style has become a huge hit and source of inspiration for the current generation and generations to come. Through social media, I realized that as long as I am alive, and as long as I create, people will always be inspired by my art. I find people congratulating and telling me that the vision of one singular woman can change and shape the modern and contemporary art world. I pat myself on the back, and say that this art form of self discovery and experiment had changed the abstract expressionist style as we know it in the twenty first century. I was simply creating the abstracts of my aesthetics which resulted in me creating a whole new art movement. Yet, isn’t this what art is supposed to do? When Monet set upon painting his “Impression, Sunrise” little did he know that one sole painting will create the major art movement of “Impressionism”. An art movement of the 1800’s that is considered to be one of the most beloved of all art movements.
So, call it “Vianism Abstract Movement”, call it the “painterly Abstract expressions of Vian Borchert”.
I am happy that I have changed the world with my art and my creation. I also realized by being a hard working woman artist, I have empowered and inspired a generation of women who haven’t event thought of being an artist and through seeing my art in these years have shifted to become one. I have immensely inspired my gender and beyond and gradually created this new movement of women who saw my raw bravery and creative vision and followed in my footsteps and style. Some call me an entrepreneur, some call me a trendsetter, but I see myself first and foremost as a woman who loves to paint, a dreamer who hopes to make this world a better and prettier place through my art!

My paintings from the well known ones such as “The Yellow Line” to “The Woods” to “Cascading”, “Misty Peach”, “Light Blue, Light Green” to “Reflection” have become signature artworks of today’s abstract expressionist movement.
It is interesting to see that it all started with an experiment and self discovery research that led to a whole new abstract art movement I call my own. I clearly see as an artist, I had shaped an utterly needed art form that is devoured by the general public and art connoisseurs alike.

My quintessential abstract expressionist painterly artwork is presented in a number of galleries world wide.

Also, artwork can be seen through major accredited art website such as Artsy and 1stdibs.

Artsy link: https://www.artsy.net/artist/v...

1stdibs link: https://www.1stdibs.com/art/pa...

1stdibs link as well: https://www.1stdibs.com/search...

Borchert shows her paintings in major cities throughout the world.

For more about artist Vian Borchert visit: www.vianborchert.com