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Abstract Inquiry · 2025
Abstract Taylor Swift
Pop Icon, Refracted
Available · in the studio, Phoenix
The icon run through abstraction — Taylor Swift as cultural force refracted until what remains is the energy, not the face.
Abstract Taylor Swift (2024) is a vibrant, mixed media portrait that fuses Pop Art spectacle with the emotive depth of abstraction. Created on a 36 x 36 inch carved wood panel, the work explores cultural iconography, celebrity perception, and reinvention. It belongs to my Pop Art Collection, which centers on how public symbols evolve in the age of saturated media.
Rather than render Taylor Swift in literal form, I aimed to translate the energy her image carries. The painting is kinetic — pulsing with saturated reds, shocking yellows, bright pinks, and blues. Her iconic silhouette is stylized but not rigid, vibrating with layered brushwork and etched grooves that mimic sonic texture. The carved surface adds a physical rhythm, transforming the panel into a kind of visual soundtrack.
Influenced by Andy Warhol’s Marilyns, this piece doesn’t mimic so much as dialogue with that legacy. Warhol crystallized celebrity as image; here, I abstract it — shifting from fixed to fluid, personal to symbolic. Taylor becomes a prism: part subject, part idea, entirely alive in color and form.
In Abstract Taylor Swift, the boundaries between portrait, symbol, and critique blur. Is this a celebration? A meditation? A reframing of pop culture through painterly means? Perhaps all of the above. Like her music, the work balances boldness with emotional texture, spectacle with sincerity.
This isn’t just a visual depiction — it’s an experience. Immediate, layered, and refracted.
Where to see it. In person at RituStudio, Phoenix, by appointment. Represented by Jarrow & Goodman, Los Angeles.
The space it needs
- Wall
- At least 5 ft wide
- Ceiling
- 8 ft or more
- Light
- Natural light preferred — the resin catches it and the color shifts through the day
- Daylight
- High contrast between lampblack and cadmium yellow lets it hold its own beside a bright window. The woodcut relief reads best in angled light, and afternoon west sun pushes the crimson forward.
Lives best in
Living room 5/5
A 5 because the lampblack-to-cerulean tensions and the crimson fracture lines animate a conversation pit the way a real conversationalist does, holding the room's attention without silencing it.
Hotel lobby 4/5
Four feels right: the refracted pop-icon energy reads as culturally legible to a wide range of guests, though a lobby's transient pace catches only the surface flash and misses the slower woodcut texture beneath.
Details
- Size
- 3 × 3 ft (W × H)
- Medium
- Acrylic on woodcut
- Finish
- Epoxy over acrylic. The resin lifts the color off the canvas and holds it forward, so the surface deepens as the light moves across the room.
- Year
- 2025
- Collection
- Abstract Inquiry
- Palette
- Lampblack · Cadmium Yellow · Cerulean · Indigo · Crimson
- Weight
- About 22 lb
- Ready
- In the studio; delivery 8–12 weeks
Its ArtGram
ArtGram.Sheaf
- Texture4
- Form5
- Colour range3
- Palette3.2
- Contrast4.2
- Abstraction Quotient-1.5
