Perceptions

I have just finished my first series: Perceptions; it is a journey that took me a year to make and has completely changed the way I paint. Individual paintings are very much like short stories; they make a statement that begins and ends with a single work. It takes me on average two to four weeks to complete a painting. This series has taken me nearly a year to complete and to me is much more reminiscent of a novel where you can look at a single theme from many different perspectives.

In the series the paintings center around eyes because when most people first think about perception the concept that pops into their mind is the idea of vision. When I first began the series I wondered if there would be enough material to merit an entire series, but I soon discovered that this particular well runs deep in that how we perceive the world is central to everything we do. I could go on and on talking about perception, but don't worry I won't. I will say this though, I believe that the way we as people understand the world around us is far more complex and more emotional than we ever realize.

If I were to look at my mother, for instance, I do not have the perception of just one thing. I perceive the love that she has for me, the love that I have for her, all of the birthdays and holidays that we have shared together, the arguments, the apologies, and the thousand other experiences and memories that we have together. All of these single events have a purity of their own and combine together to form the singular ever-changing form of my mother. In my painting of this series I have tried to recognize this concept by separating each color so that they stand alone in the paintings but come together to form one image.

Understanding, I believe, is when one person's perception matches another's. Frustration comes from this rarely happening, the miracle is that it happens at all.