Pure expression of energy/passion/emotion that makes no reference to any scene, real or imagined, allows you to follow the artist's mark making as you might follow a dance performance or a piece of instrumental music, bringing your own experience to the movement and flow of energy. The lack of subject matter lets you dance freely with the artist – feeling the strokes, slashes, splatters, and drips – allowing the artist’s actions and reactions to resonate with your own emotions.

The colors the artist chooses: lively, somber, deep, clashing, etc, can help to evoke and reinforce the emotions being portrayed.

Each individual mark will have its own characteristics, perhaps expressing calm, instability, rage, playfulness, etc. The interaction of the individual marks can evoke order, chaos, liveliness, conflict, etc.

Featured: 9th Century Tile Fragment, excavated in Iraq, Samarra.