An Abstract "take" on landscape realism

In early 2011, my Plein Air colleagues invited me to participate in one of their Landscape shows at Ashawagh Hall in East Hampton.  How does an abstract artist fit in to a show -- especially one with some of the finest landscape artists (including our good friend Alice Piefer)?  Alice and her group are able to paint some of the most beautiful landscapes on the East End of Long Island.

A landscape artist takes a horizontal view of a scene ranging from foreground to horizon and everything in between -- usually painting realistic objects from foreground, to fields to buildings to forests of trees to skies with clouds.  It suddenly struck me that some of the most abstract views we have are of skies at night and the random scenes of buildings in a city.  The night sky is so abstract, that for thousands of years people on the ground attributed names to them -- like Lyra, Cygnus, Taurus, Gemini, Scorpio and Sagittarius. I called these Star Scapes. The city skyline contains buildings with reflections on them and (at least with me) the wonder that architects and builders can make these edifices -- designing them and putting them together with complex mathematical computations.  I called these City Scapes.

Here are the six Starscapes.

 Lyra

Cygnus

Taurus

Gemini

Scorpio

Sagatarius

And here are the three City Scapes:

(From left to right Hi-Rise, Hi-Rises and Far Hi-Rise)