My tyrst abstract art?

Whispers of the Abstract

For a long time, I stood at a distance from art I couldn’t understand. What felt chaotic and incomprehensible, I brushed aside as meaningless — even ridiculing some works as “anyone could do this.” Invitations to write for artists and hold deeper conversations only stirred inner conflict, as I struggled to see what they saw.

Looking back, I realize how quick I was to judge, how much I invalidated without really listening. Yet, over time, I’ve begun to sense the quiet presence within these works — subtle murmurs, fragments of meaning that were always there, waiting for me to pause and hear them. These are the whispers of the abstract.

Over the past six years, inner work has been a constant companion. Much of it has been about understanding myself and others, and applying that learning in the way I relate and engage with the world. About three years into this seeking, I was offered an unexpected path: the exploration of psychedelic mushrooms. On my birthday, I chose to gift myself that journey.

What unfolded was unlike anything I had known. The experience was meditative, opening into dimensions I had never accessed before. Visions arose — sensory waves, abstract forms, shifting patterns and colors without the need to resemble anything familiar. For the first time, I felt no compulsion to control or explain what I was seeing. It simply flowed, and I was mesmerized.

That doorway changed the way I encounter abstract art. The walls of judgment and resistance softened. Instead of demanding clarity or control, I began to receive the works as they are — to converse with artists not about “understanding” but about their influences, their inspirations, their impulses. It became less about comprehension and more about presence. Art, like that experience, revealed itself as a gift of the moment.

Among the artists who opened this new way of seeing for me, one of my most cherished has been Achutan Kudalur.