How to Create Depth and Dimension in Modern Art

How to Create Depth and Dimension in Modern Art

Modern art, being abstract and experimental, must avoid conventional techniques in the expression of human emotions and in raising the issue and question in the viewer. One of the key elements that lift the modern artwork up is its ability to create depth and dimension for a more immersive display. With abstract forms, it might be difficult to achieve this, but there are actually a number of techniques that can make it possible for an artist to give his work depth. 

1. Techniques in Layering
One of the great ways to add depth to your art is through layering.  This can be quite deceiving to the eye-it creates an impression of distance. Working with translucent or semi-transparent materials gives way to interesting layer interactions and mergers.

2. Shadows and Light Play
Great tools for depth in an image, light and shadow are. These in modern art needn't follow traditional practices; you might recreate artificial light sources or artificially exaggerated shadows for the indication of a three-dimensional object. Properly positioned shadow or reflection off the surfaces can breathe life into a two-dimensional canvas, as if the viewer peered into an existing scene in the world, no matter how abstract.

3. View and Scale
Perspective is a marvelous technique to give depth, but modern artists can toy with this idea in new and unexpected ways.. You can use distortion or exaggeration of perspective to create foreground and background while refusing the linear perspective of the past, and using an interpretive approach to visually engage the viewer.

4. Texture and Surface Change
Texture is a further way to develop depth in a composition. It can be contributed in the literal sense of actual texture through a tangible quality achieved by brushstrokes of sufficient weight, impasto work, or other media like fabric or even some forms of metal. Smooth, flat areas against raised, textural areas allow the viewer to move across the image at a tangent, increasing his/her impression of depth.

5. Colour Contrast and Gradient
Lighter colors tend to recede while darker tones push elements forward. Warm and cool colors can play to create the suggestion of objects in the foreground and background, or even a sense of motion or depth created by a color gradient.

6. Negative Space
Negative space, or empty space, around the subject; much of the times over looked but an essential part of depth might be created. Leaving certain areas of the painting vague, hollowed out, gives room to the eye of the viewer to move more broadly throughout the painting. It can create an atmosphere of air and openness that contrasts with more solid form, and that enhances the dimensionality.

If you incorporate these techniques into your modern art, you would help transform what otherwise would probably appear to be flat and two-dimensional into a work of living, breathing dynamics. Paint, draw, or do anything with mixed media-whatever it is that you do, these methods will help take you to the next step that traditional artwork typically can't go to: being framed.

How to Create Depth and Dimension in Modern Art