The familiar question 'Is it abstract or realistic?' can be useful, but it can also be too narrow. Many contemporary paintings operate between recognizable references and abstract structure. A viewer may sense a landscape, figure, city, memory, or sound without receiving a literal depiction. The image becomes an experience rather than an illustration.
Abstraction does not necessarily mean that a painting has no subject. It can mean that the artist has transformed a subject through color, rhythm, fragmentation, scale, or gesture. A realistic reference can remain inside an abstract composition as a memory rather than a photograph. Conversely, a painting can contain recognizable forms while using highly abstract treatment of surface and color.
The useful question is therefore: what has the artist chosen to preserve, and what has the artist chosen to change? That question leads directly to composition. If a recognizable form is reduced, what replaces its role? Perhaps a color field, a diagonal, a repeated mark, or a textured area becomes the visual anchor.
This middle territory can be especially powerful in original acrylic painting because layers can carry both image and material information. A passage can suggest something recognizable while its surface remains visibly constructed. The viewer can move between reading the image and reading the paint.
When looking at a painting that sits between realism and abstraction, give yourself time. Do not try to solve it immediately. Look first at the whole, then at the details, then step back again. A successful work may change category in your mind as you move through it. That uncertainty can be part of its strength.