Terry Flaxton’s Abstract collection is comprised of 7 pieces from his early period of engagement with Sedition through the working period 2005 - 2015. The works in the collection are Until I’m Gone (2008), Reflection on Water(2008-2014), Line Dance (2008), Cathedral Steps (2012), The Sum of Hands, The Divine Being Inscribed, and Stained Glass Nature.

The works in the collection take a variety of strategies to deal with a depiction of the 'real world’ where the abstraction takes different forms, from direct abstraction as in Until I’m Gone and Reflection on Water. However in other instances the visual abstraction appears missing as in The Sum Of Hands and Cathedral Steps, but here Flaxton is nodding towards Escher with Cathedral Steps where the idea is concerned with circularity and repetition of an objective image to render an impartial state in the viewer – or in the case of Until I’m Gone where the image is abstracted images of a Norwegian Fjord, the literary response to the existential problem of living is interrogated in language that few know. We understand from the timbre of the voice that meaning is inherent in both the performance and arrangement of words – but most of us listening do not have access to the direct meaning, yet can feel what the subject matter is speaking of. Line Dance simply depicts the beauty of the forms two dancers take – but shot from above we are given a new way to interrogate those sculptural forms. The Sum of Hands also adopts an overhead position to view a simple display of hands entering and leaving the frame – but the summation of so many hands lifts the literal depiction up a level into a visual conundrum – the way the hands come together seems to imitate other things, such as sea creatures – Flaxton is asking how is this possible from a literal image? With The Divine Being Inscribed Flaxton simply depicts a Rose to combine a constant evidence of reality with the what lies behind it where we can use both a noun followed by verb: The Divine Being. Noun first, Verb second. It is all around you in an act of being moment by moment as a constant act of creation. Artists can only interpret what is around them so here is: The Divine Being. Inscribed

Lastly Flaxton simply abstracts images of the forest in Stained Glass Nature, the title referring to an art form where we raise up images and shine light through them to speak about their importance to us both culturally and spiritually. This is a simple meditation on the world surrounding us, predicating a similar strategy, prescient of and later reprised and developed in Sanctus (also available on Sedition).