Painting as Prayer: The Contemplative Dimension of My Abstract Art
When someone asks what I do for a living, I tell them that I’m an artist. And I mean that in the fullest sense: I love making art. I love discovering and engaging with new art. I adore supporting other artists and nurturing our shared arts ecosystem.
But when they ask the natural follow-up—what kind of art do you make?—I tell them simply, "contemplative abstract art."
Photo courtesy of Mark Pratt-Russum
This phrase—contemplative abstract—is more than a descriptor of my style. It captures the how and why of my creative process. It's shorthand for a spiritual practice that allows me to stretch my heart to new limits. It's entering the wordless space of communion where love is the first and final law. My paintings aren't just interesting visual compositions. They're physical evidence of an interior life shaped by stillness and wonder. They're the contours of a heart seeking to remain awake.
When I use the word contemplative, I’m not referring to a static belief system. I’m describing a way of being—a way of inhabiting the world with openness and attunement. Contemplative living is not passive observation. It is full participation: awake, active, and aware. It isn't an activity added to life or simply noticing aspects of life; it is life itself.
My contemplative roots began in the Christian tradition, guided by voices like Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk whose writings have helped articulate the ineffable dimensions of this inner life. Merton wrote:
“Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being…it is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source. It knows the Source, obscurely, inexplicably, but with a certitude that goes both beyond reason and beyond simple faith.”
Reading this, I feel deep kinship. This is what I aim to live and express in my work—not a proposition but the afterglow of an encounter. My art does not attempt to describe or depict Source; rather, the work emerges from the experience itself. Each composition is an artifact of that encounter. A visual journal entry of my ongoing intimacy with the “invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant” Source.
In my process, I’m not trying to evoke a memory, landscape, or emotion. Those are often present in the work, but they are not the focal point. Instead, my artwork is the contemplative practice itself. My painting practice the way I experience communion with Source, leaving traces and ripples.
I tend to think of my work as an energetic thumbprint. Each composition centers around gesture, indicating a moment in time. Each mark is a witness to a time of being awake, active, and aware. These gestures and forms work in harmony as an artifact of encounter. To me, they echo the quality of being where self-consciousness dissolves and the boundaries between subject and object begin to blur.
Abstract art is well-suited for this spiritual practice and contemplative living. Gesture emerging into form is how I strain beyond the edge of myself, where ego ends and Spirit begins. The blank canvas is a sacred terror. Each first stroke is a surrender to what I do not yet know, from the world beyond thought and form. But each return to the edge is a subtle, gentle slip into the depths. When I begin, I don’t crash into awareness but slowly unfurl. It is a state I cannot enter except obscurely, through ease and play.
In that contemplative awareness, I act and am acted upon. It is a dance between giving and receiving that is, itself, the encounter beyond word and form. It is free diving into the abyss, slowly releasing what I cherish as I descend deeper. In that state that artists often call “flow,” I know Source obscurely. I know Source with complete certainty, but with the certainty of wordless love. But abstract painting gives me a window to reflect on the encounter. These paintings remain after I “resurface,” each with its own subtle wisdom. This embodied practice changes me. It makes me more grateful, more aware, more alive. This is why painting, for me, is an essential spiritual practice. Abstract art is how I wake up.
“Retrograde” (2025)
My process carries another contemplative dimension. In my commissioned work, I encounter Source with and for the sake of another. After a few sessions of exploration and listening, I carry my friend in my heart while I set out. Holding them, I slip into the stream on which we all float. I work from the heart, propelled by love. What emerges astonishes me every time. Each painting reminds me that we aren’t isolated beings, but interconnected. We are one human body whose stories echo in one another.
The commission process is not mere transaction—it’s a spiritual practice of attunement and healing. It is a visual declaration of our shared humanity. It testifies to the reality that we belong to one another. One that we become aware of when we ask questions and listen. In that full silence, we know with certainty the infinite generosity that holds us and unfolds between us.
I’m a contemplative abstract artist. My hope is to make honest and true art that bears witness to Presence. I want each mark, each energetic gesture to hold the memory of the encounter. And beyond this, I encourage others to begin and cultivate their own creative practices.
Because creativity is a gentle path into a contemplative life. It has led me into my most profound, intimate, and transcendent moments. It is how I have accessed “the thin places,” where I sense and feel reality itself. Painting is how I heal. It is how I grow. And it is how I am learning to say “welcome” and “even you belong.”
Photo courtesy of Mark Pratt-Russum
