The primacy of pure feeling in the creative arts, and particularly in the abstract painting of early 20th century Constructivists and Suprematists, like Malevich, El Lissitzky, Kandinsky and Moholy-Nagy – was in no small part a consequence of the advent of photography, whose documentary prowess deprived painters of their primary purpose.

Kandinsky equated his art to music, an entirely abstract creative field, by developing a science of geometric and color relationships to apply to a canvas, out of which he believed a spiritual awakening could be achieved. Many other abstract painting movements flourished for much of the 20th century, establishing the paintbrush as the ultimate means to evoke emotional response through the manipulation of shape and color, with the work of Jackson Pollack being perhaps the most notable popular example, whereas the photographic arts remained dominated by its documentary abilities, well explored by the works of Robert Frank and Edward Weston, which though emotionally rich and politically important, were fundamentally Realist in nature.

But the camera’s purpose too is the capture and manipulation of shape and light, offering the same potential as a paintbrush for abstract composition. Kinetic photography, unlike the technique of painting with light, composes by using the movement of the camera itself to create shape and color relationships. My kinetic photographs are Constructivist compositions at their core, taking Kandinsky’s philosophies of point, line and plane, to connect emotionally in very particular ways.

As Eric Kandel explains brilliantly in his book, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, the power and meaning of any one piece of art differs form person to person, as abstract art relies on the viewer’s own experience to infuse the composition with meaning beyond the artist’s sensory objectives. My photographs are no different even though each attempts to address a specific emotional state or evoke a specific emotional response or resolution, as in the end, they depend on what the viewer imposes on them to make them personally meaningful.

Many photographers have produced amazing abstract work in the past several years, and I hope you find these a worthy contribution to that movement.

— Andrew Wiener