You ask if my paintings are abstract. The word comes from the Latin ab, from, and trahere, to pull. Hence to pull from, to take from. (Similarly, attract comes from ad, towards, and, again, trahere.)

There can be a realistic painting of, say, an apple, or an abstract: an abstraction, a taking from, the apple. But the apple as painted, however unusual – even almost unrecognizable, is still there in the mind of the painter, and later in those of the viewers.

But what if there’s no initial subject to take from? Is the painting still abstract? By the usual definition, No, but in another sense, Yes. Ab-trahere from where?

Not from the apple, or whatever the subject, but from the painter’s Deep Unconscious. Taken from his Soul – to be attracted by the Souls of the viewers.