Book Review: Australian Abstract — A New Language of Colour and Form

Australian Abstract by Amber Creswell Bell feels like a quiet turning point in Australian art. It gathers together artists who work with colour, shape, rhythm and intuition rather than recognisable scenes. In doing so, it makes a persuasive case that abstraction, while still relatively young in Australia, has finally come into its own.

Australian art has long been anchored in place. The bush, the coast, the suburban street and the figure in space have carried much of the burden of our cultural storytelling. From the Heidelberg School’s golden landscapes to the moral seriousness of mid-century realism, Australian painting has tended to show us what is there. Abstraction asks something different. It asks the viewer to feel first and interpret later. That shift has never sat entirely comfortably in a society that prides itself on practicality and clarity.

There is, undeniably, a strain of parochialism in Australian cultural life. We like our meanings legible and our symbols grounded. Abstraction resists this. It offers no obvious narrative and no immediate reassurance. In that sense, the artists featured in Australian Abstract are working against the grain. They are asking for patience, attention and trust, qualities that have not always been rewarded in our visual culture.

Creswell Bell’s great strength is that she never treats abstraction as dry theory or imported fashion. Instead, she frames it as something lived and deeply personal. The artists she includes are not chasing overseas movements or academic approval. They are responding to light, space, rhythm and sensation as they experience them here. The work feels open, generous and confident, shaped by the scale and intensity of the Australian environment.

There are clear historical threads running through the book. Early pioneers like Grace Crowley and Ralph Balson, working in relative isolation, laid foundations that were not fully appreciated in their time. Later figures such as Tony Tuckson and Sydney Ball pushed abstraction into more expressive and colour-driven territory. What distinguishes the artists in this book is a sense that they no longer feel the need to justify abstraction’s place. It is simply how they work.

This confidence is important. Australian abstraction has often existed at the margins, overshadowed by landscape painting and figurative storytelling. Yet as Creswell Bell shows, it is now robust, diverse and assured. The work ranges from tightly structured compositions to loose, intuitive explorations of colour. What unites it is a belief that meaning does not have to be literal to be powerful.

Robert Hughes once wrote that great art should jolt the viewer into awareness. Much of the work in Australian Abstract does exactly that, not through shock but through clarity. In a culture saturated with images that explain themselves instantly, abstraction creates space. It slows things down. It invites the eye to wander and the mind to drift.

Creswell Bell’s writing mirrors this openness. She avoids jargon and keeps the focus on the artists and their processes. There is enthusiasm here, but also restraint. The book does not argue aggressively for abstraction. It simply shows, again and again, that this work matters.

Australian abstraction may still be finding its voice, but it is no longer tentative. It has depth, history and momentum. Australian Abstract makes it clear that non-representational art is not an imported curiosity, but a vital and growing part of our visual culture.

In a country that has always preferred what it can name and recognise, abstraction offers something quietly radical. It asks us to look without certainty and to trust our own responses. Creswell Bell’s book suggests that we are finally ready to do just that.