The Ineffable Power of Abstract Art
This excerpt is part ten of our summer series, How Shall We Live in the Digital Age?—a collection of short pieces and excerpts from the June 2025 Ex Fonte, exploring how Christians can and should navigate the ever-changing digital landscape.
Josh Jensen
“A man who works with his hands is a laborer, a man who works with his hands and his mind is a craftsman, and a man who works with his hands, his mind, and his heart is an artist.” – Louis Nizer
My expression of art began with a love for drawing, first because it was fun, and later because I received praise for my ability to draw realistically. Through this encouragement, I continued to refine my skill into a type of craftsmanship, but I did not know anyone who made their living as an artist. By the time I got to college, I decided it would not be realistic to pursue art as a career, so I opted to major in Psychology. I loved this discipline, but it felt like there was something missing, so I decided to double major in Fine Art and Psychology.
This decision to recommit to art despite being an “unrealistic” choice evolved again as I began studying contemporary art. Initially, I was antagonistic toward most contemporary art and wrote a scathing essay in my Twentieth Century Art History course, arguing that non-realistic works were a product of postmodern relativism and meaninglessness. Looking back, I see my arrogance was fueled by my skill in realism and feeling threatened by what I could not yet grasp. Thankfully, I had a patient professor who, after reading my essay, asked to see me after class. He listened to another one of my haughty monologues and then made the simple suggestion to pay closer attention to the works we were studying and my experience with it. His patience and demeanor melted my defenses. I read books, paid attention, and slowly it all began to make sense. My conversion to abstract art wasn’t just cognitive; I began having powerful emotional experiences when visiting museums, sometimes weeping in the presence of an abstract work. When this happens, I often can’t explain what I am experiencing, but I’ve come to trust an experience that is ineffable and from the heart.
After college, I completed a counseling degree and established a private practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist in 2009. My private practice grew as my painting practice shifted towards abstract expressionism. To my surprise, I found that this art tradition and my work as a therapist have many similarities by way of spontaneity, unpredictability, and expressiveness. When I paint, I start with intuitive movements of shape, color, and texture and continue to build the piece one step at a time. Similarly, I have found that the most successful therapy appointments have an artful blend of intuition and spontaneity, as the therapist and client co-create a conversation that is honest, expressive, and meaningful.
Likewise, I hope my art evokes viewers’ imagination so they see things I may not have intended. When the imagination is involved in both creating and viewing the work, it brings us beyond the territory of precision and craftsmanship into the territory of mystery and faith. This way of seeing art connects with what Paul described in Romans 8:26, “The Holy Spirit intercedes for believers with groanings which cannot be uttered.” I believe that utterance of our deepest self and the true heart of the matter can rarely be expressed adequately with verbal language.
British Psychiatrist Ian McGilchrist is perhaps best known for his seminal work The Master and His Emissary. The title refers to a parable that illustrates the roles of the right and left hemispheres of the brain: wise master and emissary or servant, respectively. The left side is where our verbal language resides and is skilled in acquiring, knowing, recognizing, and refining towards its goal-directed purpose. In other words, it’s the seat of craftsmanship. By contrast, the right side sees the world as a whole and utilizes symbolic, non-literal, non-verbal language. It is intuitive and the seat of all human attachment and the unconscious. For these reasons, I am drawn to the wisdom of the right hemisphere with all of its benefits and limitations, and my art expresses this side of the brain.
Emily Dickinson insisted that artists should “tell all the truth but tell it slant.” I still find realism beautiful, but I’m drawn even more to a conversational approach to art and faith that is non-realistic, non-literal, and in some cases, ineffable. My dual career as an artist and therapist continues to challenge me to consider how truth and beauty can be found everywhere and perhaps most powerfully when we let go of our restrictive ways of holding them. In the words of Wendell Berry, “The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”