by Robert Brune

Isaac Abrams has spent more than six decades creating a visual world where brilliant color, surreal forms and an unrestrained imagination seem to move freely between the microscopic and the cosmic. During the Saugerties Artists Studio Tour, stepping into Abrams’ studio offered considerably more than an opportunity to see his paintings. It became a journey through an extraordinary life in art stretching back to the cultural upheaval of New York City in the 1960s.

A self-taught artist who began painting in 1965, Abrams became an early pioneer of what came to be known as psychedelic art. That same year, he founded the Coda Gallery in New York City, devoted to the emerging psychedelic movement. Abrams eventually worked across painting, drawing, sculpture, glass, computer animation and experimental video, with his work appearing in galleries, museums and publications internationally. His animation projects later ranged from experimental works shown at Studio 54 to the creation of the enormous kaleidoscopic installation in Mount Tremper. Yet standing among decades of work in his Saugerties studio, Abrams reduced much of his artistic philosophy to something wonderfully simple. “Color is the thing I do, really, best,” he said.

Abrams remembers that fascination beginning during childhood while looking toward the sky and discovering subtle variations in light and color without anyone teaching him how to see them. “I didn’t go to art school,” Abrams said. That lack of formal training became something he embraced rather than regretted. His instinctive approach eventually brought him into the orbit of some of the most recognizable figures of the era, including Timothy Leary and Salvador Dali.

Abrams recalled arriving at New York’s St. Regis Hotel carrying an enormous early painting to show Dali. Rather than being dismissed, Abrams said the legendary surrealist stood and applauded. “Bravo, bravo,” Abrams remembered him saying. Dali encouraged the young artist to return and see him again, although circumstances prevented Abrams from ever formally studying with him. In retrospect, Abrams believes developing independently may have been more important. “The influence was my own,” he said.

His encounters with Timothy Leary were equally unconventional. When Abrams traveled to Millbrook hoping to discuss his plans for a psychedelic gallery, he asked where Leary was and someone pointed upward. “He was up in a tree,” Abrams recalled. Abrams climbed up to join him and talk business.

Across the backyard, Abrams’ wife, artist Yvette Lewis, reflected on his place within that remarkable period of New York culture. Lewis described Abrams as a genuine pioneer of psychedelic art whose world intersected with artists including Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. More than 60 years after Abrams first picked up a paintbrush, the history surrounding him is remarkable, but the studio makes something else equally clear. Isaac Abrams is not simply preserving a celebrated past. He is still painting, experimenting and chasing color.