4 Abstract Artists Who Paint What It Feels Like to Be Human

If you’ve ever stood before a figurative abstract painting, you know it carries a certain tension, a push and pull between the seen and the felt. One moment, you catch the curve of a body, the tilt of a head, the suggestion of a gaze. The next, those familiar forms dissolve into gestures, colours, and textures that speak in another language altogether. Unlike traditional portraiture that seeks likeness, or pure abstraction that abandons figure, figurative abstraction lingers in the threshold between the two. It is both a presence and an echo, a story half-told yet deeply understood.

At the Arts to Hearts Project, we love figurative abstract art because it reveals more than appearances; it reveals the inner life of being. It’s not just about what a figure looks like, but about how it feels to exist, to move, to remember, to dream. Artists working in this space transform the body into symbol, memory into colour, and emotion into form. The human figure becomes a vessel: sometimes fragmented, sometimes whole, always alive with energy.

This week, we’re not just looking at abstraction or at figuration, but at the artists who weave them together. Through their hands, the human form becomes both intimate and infinite, a reminder of how art can capture the complexity of our lives, our connections, and our fleeting moments of truth.

Angus Martin @angusmartinart

Angus Martin is a Sydney-based figurative abstract artist who’s timeless, music-driven practice transforms the human form into intimate, emotional, and deeply personal works. His paintings don’t just capture the human form, they reimagine it, dissolving bodies, gestures, and memories into fields of colour and texture. What makes his art so powerful is the way it holds both clarity and mystery: you recognize fragments of a figure, yet you’re drawn into emotions that live far beyond the surface. Based in Sydney, Angus builds his process around music. He often paints a single song on repeat, allowing rhythm and lyrics to stir feelings that pour into his work. This connection gives his paintings an atmosphere that feels alive, soft, strong, and layered with hidden affirmations, as if each canvas carries a quiet reminder of hope.

With training in graphic design and life drawing, he brings a sharp sense of balance and composition, but his paintings are guided by intuition and emotion. In his studio, a calm space shared with his French bulldog, Dolly, Angus creates artworks that feel like private conversations, meditative, intimate, and full of presence. His art has reached audiences across Australia, from The Other Art Fair in Sydney to the Affordable Art Fairs in Melbourne and Brisbane. Collectors and viewers alike are drawn to the way his work reflects shared emotions, offering both beauty and resonance. For Angus Martin, the human figure is more than form; it is memory, music, and meaning. Through his paintings, he invites us not just to look, but to feel, and to find pieces of ourselves within the abstraction.

Laila @fkathecreator

Based in California, Laila @fkathecreator is one of those amazing figurative abstract artists whose work feels both powerful and deeply human. Her paintings don’t just capture the human figure, they transform faces and gestures dissolve into layers of color, rhythm, and texture. What makes her art so compelling is the way it holds both strength and vulnerability: you recognize fragments of a portrait, yet you’re drawn into emotions that go far beyond the surface. Each work carries a sense of intimacy while leaving space for the viewer’s own reflection Laila moves fluidly between painting, mixed media, and digital forms, guided by intuition rather than rigid structure. Her process is guided by intuition, allowing emotion to shape composition as much as line or color. In her studio, she moves between brush, pen, and digital tools, building portraits that feel alive with movement and energy. Laila’s practice is not limited to one medium; she explores both canvas and screen, offering original works, illustrations, and creative resources that extend her artistic vision to a wider audience.

Her artworks are celebrated for their balance of clarity and mystery. A figure may emerge boldly from a field of abstraction, yet the details leave room for interpretation, for memory, for connection. The colors carry vitality, the textures create rhythm, and the faces she paints hold presence while hinting at deeper stories. This combination of the familiar and the abstract is what makes her work resonate so strongly—each piece feels at once personal to the artist and universal to the viewer. For Laila, art is more than a visual practice—it is a way of opening conversation and offering connection. Her portraits are not only about representation, but about energy, emotion, and shared humanity. She invites us not just to look but to feel, to recognize fragments of our own lives within her abstractions, and to see how color, form, and figure can hold memory, resilience, and hope. Through her work, Laila reminds us that portraiture is not only about likeness, but about presence. She captures what is fleeting, emotional, and unspoken, transforming it into art that lingers long after you’ve seen it.

Jad Zeitouni @zeitounijad.art

Jad Zeitouni is a self-taught figurative abstract artist and trained engineer whose bold, layered practice merges technical precision with raw emotional depth. His works often begin with human figures or landscapes but evolve into energetic compositions where form and abstraction intertwine seamlessly. What makes his art especially compelling is how it balances boldness and vulnerability; faces emerge, yet they’re not confined they breathe within layers of movement, color, and memory. A mechanical engineer by training, Jad draws upon his technical eye and intimate relationship with his surroundings to inform his creative vision. His iconic “Landslide: Grass Cutters” series roots abstraction in familiar scenes, transforming them into meditations on effort, energy, and renewal.

His technique speaks of a story unfolding in layers. Using acrylic and oil over wood panels, often enhanced with photography and varnish, Jad builds texture and depth that invite psychological discovery. Influenced by artists like Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud, his bold brushstrokes and vibrant palette give his work an emotional resonance that is both visceral and introspective. As Jad describes his process, he seeks to capture more than appearance he aims to connect. His participation in the Saatchi Gallery’s Konooz Art Auction in London marked a milestone; his contemporary portraits now speak to audiences around the world. For Jad Zeitouni, painting is a form of exploration, a way to make visible the unspoken, the emotional, the layered. Through texture, gesture, and depth, he invites us not just to look, but to feel the stories beneath the surface.

Aušrinė Pudževytė @im_aube

Aušrinė Pudževytė is a Lithuanian figurative abstract artist and muralist whose vibrant, global practice blends semi-realism, abstraction, and street art to create powerful, human-centered works across continents. A brilliant muralist and painter, her work blends semi-realism, abstraction, and street art into powerful expressions that span continents. Born and raised in Lithuania, she discovered her passion for painting at a young age and has since transformed that passion into a global practice. Her journey has taken her from small canvases to large-scale murals that now cover walls across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the United States. Her paintings often begin with the human face or figure but move beyond likeness into color, movement, and pattern. The result is work that feels both familiar and open to interpretation. Whether in a busy city street or a quiet neighborhood wall, her murals are created to connect with the local community and change the atmosphere of the space.

Travel is central to her process. Carrying her brushes and paints wherever she goes, Aušrinė uses her art as a way to experience cultures, meet new people, and build connections. She describes her mission as more than just creating murals it’s about spreading joy, celebrating diversity, and encouraging creativity in everyone. Through workshops, collaborations, and community projects, she has worked with people of all ages and backgrounds, showing how art can inspire confidence and bring people together. Her style combines strong composition with intuition, resulting in work that feels alive and approachable. For Aušrinė Pudževytė, art is not just about making spaces beautiful, it’s about leaving behind a message of creativity, hope, and shared humanity. With each painting, she continues her mission of turning the world into her canvas, one wall at a time.

Figurative abstract painting is the art of holding two worlds at once: the seen and the felt, the body and the memory, the figure and the emotion. In every line, gesture, and field of color, these artists show us that likeness is only the beginning. What lingers is presence: the intimacy of a gaze, the rhythm of movement, the weight of silence transformed into form.

At Arts to Hearts Project, we believe figurative abstraction is where recognition meets imagination, where the human form becomes not just representation but resonance. It is a language of fragments and wholeness, of clarity and mystery, always inviting us to pause, to feel, and to find ourselves reflected in the in-between.

These paintings are more than portraits or gestures, they are stories unfolding in color and texture, reminders that art’s true power is not in copying life but in capturing what it means to live it. If art that fuses light, memory, and imagination speaks to you, these artists are worth your gaze. Their paintings turn the process into poetry and make pigment shine with something lasting and deeply human.