A Cognitive Pragmatic Approach
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
Literary Critic and Art Critic
In her abstract creative project, Ulie Schwab was connecting memory, the awareness area in generating broad mental states about the Earth, and its poetic-natural sounds, representing vast cosmic-earth tones and reflections in an infinite abstract context, which was evident in the absence of the specific frame of the painting; She then built cognitive schemas about the connection of space to consciousness and the self-expressive aspect that we can infer by assuming the existence of some introspective processes involving sounds and dream images that lie beyond the color, the layers of the painting, and the metaphorical mental representations or dynamic similes that can be interpreted between the artist's consciousness and the viewer's consciousness.
This year, 2023, Ulie Schwab presents us with another group of abstract works entitled A New Stage of Consciousness; That is, it moved within the same abstract project from relying on the poetics of the earthly-cosmic within the self to paying attention to the processes of consciousness itself. That is, consciousness itself became the subject of the new abstract vision.
What characterizes consciousness and introspective processes in general?
It is the spectral characteristic and the transcendence of the centrality of the visual or the material, meaning that the abstract painting has now become, according to Ulie Schwab, more connected to the vast inner field of consciousness, which may go beyond the visible signs in the painting. Then, Pragmatically, her discourse establishes an implication that suggests that the painting has become an opening for discovering self-awareness and potential introspective images in the artist’s and the viewer’s consciousness.
If we consider Ulie Schwab’s speech from a pragmatic methodological angle according to the main communication model between the artist and the viewer, we will notice that Ulie emphasizes the connection of abstraction with consciousness and subconsciousness, virtual worlds, and layers of color as possible spatial worlds or as virtual visual formations, or potential similes that can be reinterpreted.
In this context, we can deduce an implicit speech or pictorial act (1) that is representative and based on the inseparability of the spirit and history of abstraction from the effectiveness of consciousness and its role in producing the specificity of the semiotic relationships in each individual artwork.
The discourse confirms, also, another representational act based on confirming the dynamism of the stream of images in ethereal rings connected to the renewal of conscious perception of both the artist and the viewer during the first vision and during subsequent viewings. This is a post-modern feature in reception and is also consistent with the current cultural context in the new studies of consciousness and the subconscious.
The discourse includes an expressive pictorial verbal act based on supporting the increasing proportion of abstraction’s relevance to the stream of conscious and subconscious images in our current cultural moment. It also includes a directive pictorial or speech act based on the continuous questioning of the experience of consciousness and its relationship to the essence of images and their ever-dynamic internal spatial manifestations with changing context indicators
Ulie Schwab's abstract works on the new stage of consciousness come within a broad cultural context that celebrates inner self-reflections, renewed scientific questioning about the nature of consciousness and the nature of internal mental images and representations, and the juxtaposition between images and possible worlds in a way that stimulates imagination, fantasy, and similes.
Additionally, If we re-read the context in a cognitive, pragmatic manner in accordance with Sperber and Wilson’s theory of relevance, we will find that Ulie has selected - cognitively - a set of contextual indicators suitable for inferential expansion between the artist and the viewer in the main pragmatic communication model; These contextual indicators are the probabilistic shape dynamism index, the internal pictorial generation index, the breadth index of spatial abstract layers, and the potential spatial layer depth index.
The mental state in the production of artworks related to consciousness is centered here on Ulie's linking the cosmic and the self-reflective in the context of contemporary abstraction.
As for Ulie's internal mental representations, they are based on probabilistic visual mental images or similes that belong to the history of abstraction and then develop relatively according to the context of color, relative shape, and the cognitive elements selected in the model of contemporary communication or possible communication in the future.
In this renewed aesthetic cognitive context, we would like to return to William S. Robinson's discourse on the extent of homogeneity and difference in qualitative conscious experiences in his book entitled Understanding Phenomenal Consciousness, in which he points out that the gradual temporal change in experiences of colors, sounds, and distant sights is closely related to the productivity of qualitative conscious phenomenal events, and the greater the temporal size. - The spatial location is great, possibilities of merging and overlapping occur, especially in colors. (2)
William S. Robinson's discourse then emphasizes the potential homogeneity and dynamism in the conscious perception of visual data, and also inaugurates some possible semiotic relations and impressions within; This confirms the richness of the experience of awareness of images and connotations.
Hence, we may see some similes, characters, and tools of civilization, uncertainly, in Ulie's abstraction within this cognitive context that celebrates the dynamism of conscious perception of potential visual experiences.
In some detail, I would like to read Ulie's work in which she combined black abstract layers with some layers of gold and some green spaces. As I mentioned before, the shapes and similes here are dynamic and may be subject to change between the artist’s awareness, the viewer’s awareness, and changes in the context. That is why I would like to point out that I have noticed from my relative perceptual position some creative, dynamic, uncertain shapes such as water, some marine creatures, some ancient reptiles, the spectrum of an arrow pointing downwards, and what looks like the eye of a bird; I noticed that everything here indicates a kind of sympathy and pictorial integration into the movement of color and its abstract layers.
In my analysis of the semantics of black and gold, I would like to return to Kassia St Clair's discourse in her book entitled The Secret Lives of Colour; she indicates the connection of black with fear and the depth of the self-existential attitude and the connection of gold with eternal brilliance and adornment. (3) We thus recognize, in her discourse, the semantics of mystery inherent in the connotations of black and the authenticity of the color gold, as well as the natural connection between green and the state of cosmic sympathy.
These semantics cannot be separated from the relative semiotic formation of the spaces of the layers, and the metaphorical mental representations it contains. Here, Ulie confirms the connection of awareness to the invisible spaces and their internal pictorial richness. She also confirms the authenticity of consciousness itself, and the authenticity of the experimental forms it produces in a kind of inner and subjective universal sympathy beyond the abstract scene.
I would also like to address the work of Ulie that I referred to according to the cognitive methodological results of the global neuronal workspace model according to the efforts of Stanislas Dehaene, Jean-Pierre Changeux, and Lionel Naccache (4), that confirms - in the theoretical discourse - the dynamic relationship between information, the evaluation space, memory, and the structure of presence in the production of dynamic decisions and interpretations by the global neuronal workspace actions as well as producing an appropriate response.
Consequently, we note that Ulie has focused - in her artistic work - on paying attention to the visual data related to the originality of the layers of black and gold and the production of the self-interpenetrating spaces of some mental representations and metaphorical forms. Hence, the space of evaluation was more internal, meaning it gave preference to self-conscious images or introspection processes. The work combined the role of long-term memory, which goes back to the authenticity of the universe, the deep layers of the psyche, and its connection to the history of renewed modernist abstraction, and gave working memory the role of instantaneous refinement and modification according to internal contemplations or viewing updates. As for the structure of presence, it was based on contextual indicators related to the abundance of adjacent images, the rise of fantasy, dream images, and possible worlds, and their relationship to the mental state at the time of the first production of the work. Conscious processors then converged in the global neural workspace toward affirming authenticity, ambiguity, and empathy in the relationship between the subjective, the cosmic, and the dreamlike. It produced a cognitive-aesthetic response in the future related to the expansion of the production of metaphors and experimental mental representations according to the context of possible communication and possible viewing moments.
In this critical context, I would also like to read two important works by Ulie according to the results of perceptual metaphor and the mental space of perceptual blending according to the efforts of Fauconnier, Lakoff, Johnson, and Mark Turner to reveal the implications of the dynamic generation of abstract shapes and their relationship to movement, color, and subjective spatial expansion beyond the experimental abstract scene.
In one of these two abstract works, Ulie mixed the brick color with the black color, creating what looked like movement in depth. I believe that such a movement may suggest the music of attraction inward, or suggest another alternative musical movement related to a gradual opening upward. I believe that this deep, spatial, perceptual blending between the two movements suggests confirmation of the multiplicity of levels of self-cosmic presence and subconscious expansion in the production of images, impressions, and metaphors.
The general space in the construction of the cognitive metaphor included in the work discourse will then be the global subjective space; The first input space will be a space of attraction and self-aesthetic ascent, while the second input space will be excessive spatial expansion in the production of images, and both mental spaces will be linked to a set of suggested connotations and connections such as the dynamism of formation, replaceability, and the ability to repeat and differ beyond the artwork and in its depth and in its possible spatial dynamics.
As for the space of cognitive blending, it will be the withdrawal of the self or its spatial integration into a possible ethereal space.
As for Ulie's other abstract work, the color is mostly yellow. I find that its larger area resembles a kind of liquid, dreamy desert space, and includes a set of internal mental representations or similes produced by creative consciousness; These are probabilistic similes and are always subject to reinterpretation, as I mentioned before. Among them is an area that resembles virtual water, what resembles a section of the recurring circular stream of life, what resembles a dark dreamy eye, what resembles the heads of newborn birds, and others.
The general area of the cognitive metaphor structure would then be the potential place; As for the first mental input space, it is something like a dynamic imaginary desert. The second input space is a possible virtual, pictorial, or dreamy world; The two mental spaces will connect to each other through a set of semantics and links. Such as metaphorical fluidity, the acceptance of openness to another place in the deep conscious and subconscious experience, and the generation of virtual dreamy forms. As for the space of perceptual blending, it will form a spatial patch that resembles the Earth but is fluid and united by a possible virtual depth.
Finally, I see that Ulie Schwab's new collection contributes to the development of the current aesthetical sense of contemporary abstraction, especially within the multiple layers of colors and infinite peaceful impact.
*Notes:
(1) To the expand reading of the image acts, read: Horst Bredekamp, Image Acts: A Systematic Approach to Visual Agency: 2, De Gruyter; Second edition, 2021.
(2) Read, William S. Robinson, Understanding Phenomenal Consciousness, Cambridge University Press, 2004, p. 229.
(3) Read, Kassia St. Clair, The Secret Lives of Colour, John Murray; Illustrated edition. 2018, p 277, 278
(4) Read, Stanislas Dehaene, Jean-Pierre Changeux, and Lionel Naccache, The Global Neuronal Workspace Model of Conscious Access, at:
Dr. Mohammed Sameer Abd Elsalam
Literary Critic and Art Critic
8 October 2023