Contemporary art shares with contemporary literature many of the same themes and ideas.

You'll notice, for example, that you don't see a lot of people in these pictures. One major theme of contemporary art is isolation, so many artists (and here I'm speaking mainly of artists who painted from the 1950s on) choose to show landscapes devoid of people. Look at Diebenkorn's freeway, for example--ever see one that empty in Los Angeles? Even when they do paint people, those people tend to be alone, in sparsely furnished spaces.

Another major theme of contemporary art is fragmentation; thus the collage approach you see in Hockney and Gabbiani's works, which are composed of tiny fragments of paper.

Another common theme is the idea that reality is all in the eye of the beholder; thus the non-representational art.

Of course, I'm overgeneralizing terribly. Contemporary art is so much more complex than I can express in this little box. And there are so many good artists. This tiny gallery is meant just as a starting point. So read about these artists; then follow the links to other artists. You may like what you find.