Chaos and Order in Abstract Art: The Ongoing Alchemy

By Simon Kenny | 7 min read

A blank canvas holds no order at all, only possibility. Every painting in the studio starts there, in that undefined space, before instinct and structure begin their negotiation with one another. It is the same negotiation that shapes a coastline, or a cloud of gas light years away, long before either settles into something recognisable.

Chaos and order in abstract art sit at the centre of how most abstract paintings are made. The process typically begins with spontaneous, unplanned mark making and is then shaped into a resolved composition. The same tension turns up throughout nature and the cosmos, in storm systems, coastal erosion and star forming nebulae, which is one reason abstract art so often feels connected to something larger than the canvas itself.

This post looks at how that push and pull between chaos and order shows up in the studio, along the coastline, and in the night sky, and why it matters to anyone standing in front of an abstract painting and trying to work out what they are looking at.

What is the alchemy of chaos and order in abstract art?

Alchemy, in this sense, has nothing to do with turning lead into gold. It refers to a process of transformation, where raw, unplanned material becomes something ordered and intentional through repeated decisions rather than a single flash of insight.

Early abstract painters treated the canvas this way from the outset. In 1911, Kandinsky published Concerning the Spiritual in Art, arguing that colour and form could carry feeling directly, the way music does, without needing to depict a recognisable subject. The Abstract Expressionists who followed extended that idea further, developing largely in New York through the 1940s and 1950s. As the Guggenheim Museum explains, painters of that movement treated the canvas as an arena for action, where the process of making the mark is as important as the finished image.

That same tradition runs through Simon Kenny’s studio process. A piece usually begins in a state that could fairly be called glorious untidiness, intuitive and music led, with no fixed plan for where a mark will land or what colour will follow it. Order arrives later, through decisions about balance, layering and composition that gradually pull the piece towards resolution, often over several weeks rather than a single sitting.

How does the natural world shape the work?

Nature supplies a working model for the same chaos to order pattern, on a timescale that is easier to observe than a cosmic one. Storms build, peak and pass. Coastlines are worn down by tides and weather over years, then hold their new shape until the next storm arrives and the process begins again.

The Kent coast has been a recurring reference point, particularly its more exposed stretches, where the sea’s force is easy to read directly in the land itself, in slumped cliffs, shifting shingle and the debris left after a rough tide. Standing at the edge of that kind of weather is a useful, fairly humbling reminder that disorder is rarely permanent. Given enough time, it settles into a new and equally valid form.

That cycle shows up in the studio in practical ways: layered, weathered textures built up in stages, colour choices that echo storm light or flat calm water, and compositions that hold real tension without resolving it completely. The intention is never to illustrate a particular view of the coastline, but to carry its underlying rhythm, build up, release, settle, onto the canvas. Readers curious about that stage of the process can find more detail on how each painting takes shape in the studio.

What role does the cosmos play in the work?

The same pattern repeats at a scale that is harder to picture but no less consistent. Nebulae, the vast clouds of gas and dust scattered across the galaxy, look entirely chaotic to the eye at first glance, yet they are also where stars are formed, as gravity slowly pulls loose material into denser, more ordered structures over immense stretches of time.

The Hubble Space Telescope’s 1995 images of the Eagle Nebula, widely known as the Pillars of Creation, remain one of the clearest illustrations of this. Vast, seemingly disordered columns of gas and dust were shown to be active sites of star formation, disorder and structure captured in the same frame. That image has since become a reference point well beyond astronomy, cited in art and design contexts precisely because it makes an abstract idea, chaos resolving into form, visible in a single photograph.

That parallel between cosmic and studio processes is not really a coincidence so much as a shared underlying principle. Whether the material in question is gas, dust and gravity, or paint, water and canvas, the movement from disorder towards form appears to be one of the more consistent patterns in how things come together at any scale. Abstract painting gives that pattern a visual language of its own, without needing to depict any specific galaxy, nebula or star system. It borrows the rhythm rather than the imagery, which is why none of these paintings are titled after a specific constellation or region of sky.

Why does abstract art invite such different interpretations?

Largely because it rarely tells the viewer what to see. According to the Tate, abstract art uses shapes, colours and forms to achieve an effect rather than to represent a visible reality, which is part of why the form carries such strong emotional and spiritual associations for many viewers, an idea that has held since the earliest abstract works of the twentieth century.

That openness is deliberate rather than accidental. A painting built from studio process, coastal weather and cosmic imagery in roughly equal measure does not resolve into one single, fixed meaning. Instead it offers a structure that each viewer reads against their own experience, memories and mood on the day they see it.

This reinstates what is meant by the idea of the canvas as a mirror: not that the artist’s meaning is hidden inside it, waiting to be found, but that the work stays expansive enough for a viewer’s own associations to surface. Readers interested in the psychological side of that response, why colour and composition affect mood, may find that a useful subject to explore separately.

Frequently asked questions

What is meant by chaos and order in abstract art?

It refers to the way many abstract paintings begin with spontaneous, unplanned mark making and are then resolved into a structured composition, echoing patterns found in nature and the cosmos.

How does nature influence Simon Kenny’s paintings?

Coastal weather, particularly along the Kent coast, informs layered textures, colour choices and compositions that hold tension between disorder and structure rather than illustrating a specific view.

Why is abstract art often described as open to interpretation?

Abstract work uses colour, shape and form rather than recognisable imagery, so it does not fix a single meaning. This leaves room for a viewer’s own experience to shape what they see.

Where can I see paintings inspired by the coast and the cosmos?

Current pieces exploring these themes are available to view in the collection, with new work added as it leaves the studio.

A closing thought

The studio, the coastline and the night sky have less in common on the surface, yet each works through the same rhythm of disorder settling into form. That rhythm is what this series has been tracing, piece by piece, and it remains the clearest way to explain why the work looks the way it does.

I keep coming back to it because it still surprises me how consistent that pattern is, in paint as much as anywhere else. For anyone who wants to see where it leads, my website is the best starting point, and I am always glad to hear from anyone considering a commission, just get in touch directly.