Is "Realism" in painting a description or process?
In "Objective Realism," the description is key - the greater the level of accuracy, the more "real" the images of objects and spaces are seen in the painting.
In "Objective Abstraction," the descriptions only require identification of any objective form or space because their abstraction is the primary concern in creating the painting. Cubism is probably the most identified example.
In "Non-objective Abstraction," there are no "real" objects or spaces as such identified, but rather the "visual elements" (line, shape, plane, value, volume, texture, color, etc.) and their intrinsic attributes or qualities are explored for a variety of reasons. Forms are sometimes categorized into geometric and biomorphic types. The overall direction has led to an objective flatness with value given to innovation. There are exceptions of course, DeKooning's Abstract Expressionism and Jackson Pollock's "all over" or "drip" paintings come to mind.
Note: Originally I worked with Phi alone in forming the structures and intuitively added "Quarter-circles" as a way to break-up all of the straight lines. All of the structural "phenomena" described below came about at different times as my work evolved; not all of them can be found on each and every painting. The "disclosures" of these occurred most often after each painting was completed or nearly so. This was the result of my using improvisation (not to foresee) in forming the structure. I use the term "disclosure" when describing something I've discovered while working with Phi and Non-Euclidean geometry. To me it implies that discovery requires "receptivity" in order to take place.
In "Non-objective Realism," both image and space are addressed geometrically and intuitively as rational and irrational via improvisation. Seen as Relativity itself, Non-Euclidean Geometry was found within the structures formed with Phi (also relativistic), with the addition of four, quarter-circles (sometimes more) forming regular, curved arc-lines. The ends of each "arc-line," if not already done, can be connected with a straight line. When a third line intersects the center of this connecting, straight line @ 90 degrees and is also extended through the center of the quarter-circle arc-line, it too falls @ 90 degrees with this third line. This defines these two lines, one straight and one curved, as being parallel. Additionally, in contradiction to traditional Euclidean geometry, they do meet, characteristic of non-Euclidean geometry.
There are usually at least four of these quarter-circle arc-lines in the paintings, each pointing in four equal directions from its center. When combined they form a circle although their radii are typically not the same dimension so it's not a whole circle-shape as such.
The latest realization has to do with what's called a "Fibonacci spiral" or "golden spiral." These spiral configurations are the result of using Phi rectangles and quarter-circle arc-lines drawn within a square form of a sub-divided reduction of Phi. This is a very common visualization of this phenomena where when you subtract a "square" made of the shorter side of a Phi rectangle, you get another Phi rectangle of a smaller dimension, which can be reduced over and over again in the same way with the smaller and smaller quarter-circle arc-lines forming a spiral. Although this doesn't actually occur in the paintings, the idea of quarter-circle arc-lines fitting inside a square reminded me of the basis of the "spiral" configuration.