The Three Currents — How Urban Forms, Florals and Abstract Oils Shape Every Piece
Every artist has a source. It is where the work begins before a single mark is made. For me, there are three distinct currents. They run through everything I create. These are urban forms, floral watercolours, and abstract oils. They do not take turns or stay in their lanes. They push into each other and argue. Eventually, they coexist inside every piece. This includes all the abstract digital art I make.
Understanding these three currents is the closest I can get to explaining why my work looks the way it does.
The First Current — Urban Forms
I have always been drawn to the geometry of the built world. Not the grand monuments or famous landmarks. Instead, it's the everyday structures people walk past. Most people do not give them a second glance. This includes scaffolding and rooflines. A fire escape throws a shadow across a brick wall at midday. The repeating rhythm of windows climbs an office block face.
These forms carry a quiet authority. They are precise, deliberate, and completely indifferent to how they make you feel. That indifference is exactly what draws me in. I want to take that cold precision and warm it up. I want to find the atmosphere hiding inside the architecture.
Urban forms give my abstract digital art prints their underlying structure. The bones beneath the surface. Even when a finished piece looks loose and painterly, there is almost always a geometric foundation holding it together underneath.
The Second Current — Floral Watercolours
If urban forms are the skeleton, floral watercolours are the breath.
Floral work has an organic drift. Geometry simply cannot produce it. Petals do not follow rules. Colour blooms outward instead of staying inside the lines. Edges soften and dissolve rather than holding firm. Working with floral watercolour in Photoshop forces me to loosen my grip. I allow the piece to move in unplanned directions.
This is where my abstract digital art prints feel alive. A watercolour wash bleeds into a hard geometric edge. It softens that edge. That is the moment I know a piece is working. The floral current does not overpower the structure. It reveals something warmer living inside it.
The Third Current — Abstract Oils and Abstract Digital Art
The third current is the one that adds weight.
Abstract oil influences bring texture and depth. They also add a kind of imperfect humanity to the work. Oil marks are gestural. They carry the memory of the hand that made them. Even translated into a digital environment, that quality survives. There is a roughness at the brushstroke's edge. A heaviness exists in how colour sits on the canvas.
Where urban forms give me precision and florals give me movement, abstract oils give me gravity. They stop a piece from floating away into pure decoration. They remind the viewer — and me — that there is real feeling behind the surface.
Where the Three Currents Meet
Photoshop is where all three come together. I layer geometric forms. Then, I wash floral colour across them. I push abstract oil textures through the whole piece. Something unexpected then starts to emerge. Structure loosens, and florals breathe into shapes. Oils add depth beneath the watercolour haze.
The result is never quite what I planned. That's the point.
I am not trying to illustrate a concept. I am also not trying to decorate a wall. I am trying to capture a tension. It is the same tension you feel in a city at dusk. Hard edges of buildings start to soften in the fading light. The whole scene becomes more than its parts.
That tension is what every abstract digital art print I make is chasing.
If you want to see where these three currents have taken me, explore the full collection. Visit Phillip J Gordon Digital Art Prints. The work is there. The tension is built in.
— Phillip J Gordon
