Art Books
I’ve compiled recent series of work into small art books. They are softcover books 7” x 7” available for sale at Blurb and amazon.com (not .ca unfortunately!) for $45 each. You can see a preview by clicking on the Blurb link. I’ve included text that covers some of the things I’ve been thinking about in relation to the work. At the bottom of the page is a bibliography of books that interest me and which have had some influence on the work.
Horizons
Paperback - preview and buy on Blurb
The horizon appears where the Earth meets the sky. It recedes as it is approached, always out of reach. A horizon can also be the limit of what we can see or know, or the edge where something changes into something else. These pieces will let you catch yourself seeing; to notice the moment when your mind shifts between perceiving the material surface and creating the illusion of clouds and waves. Through the gap in this horizon, there’s a glimpse of the conscious mind at work.
Phosphenes
Paperback - preview and buy on Blurb
The images in this body of work are based on cloud and wave photos. Outlines, tracings, maps, and diagrams are layered over the images in a way analogous to how we interpret, map and analyze our environment. Throughout the surface, fragments float into focus and then recede as the eye moves on to other elements. The work reflects a world where nothing is solid or permanent. It’s our act of perception that brings elements into being and dissolves them again. What we see in the world is not what is 'objectively' out there; most of it is a projection of ideas that we've formed or learned. These pieces are an exercise in self awareness of the assumptions and presuppositions that one inevitably carries around. It may be impossible to see the world as it truly and fully is, but it's easy to fool yourself into thinking that you can.
Clouds
Paperback - preview and buy on Blurb
The sky, animated by clouds, is an endless, slow-moving drama. It’s a performance with an ambiguous, open-ended script. Clouds invite the mind to conjure wild narratives and to wander in multiple directions. My aim is not merely to portray clouds, but to re-present, to re-create, the experience that inspires those meandering thoughts.
Bibliography
It might be interesting to know what artist reads. These are books that have had some influence on me:
Bloom, Paul. Psych: The Story of the Human Mind. Ecco, an Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2023.
This was an enjoyable read. The writing style is so elegant and entertaining it feels like you’re just reading for fun. And then you get a solid education on psychology, consciousness and perception for free.
Damasio, Antonio. Feeling & Knowing. Pantheon, 26 Oct. 2021.
deGrasse Tyson, Neil. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. W. W. Norton & Company, 2 May 2017.
Dennett, D C. Kinds of Minds : Toward an Understanding of Consciousness. New York, Basic Books, 1998.
Greene, Brian. UNTIL the END of TIME : Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe. S.L., Vintage, 2021.
Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time : From the Big Bang to Black Holes. 1988. London, Bantam Books, 2016.
Hawkins, Jeff. A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence. Basic, 2021.
Jeff Hawkins writes about neuroscience from a different point of view. He is a computer scientist and entrepreneur - the inventor of the Palm Pilot. His interest focuses on how general intelligence works in the brain and how these systems could be applied to artificial intelligence. He studies the structure of the neo-cortex where phenomenal consciousness seems to arise. He argues that this newest part of the brain borrows structures from older sections to create a large array of mini-brains: a hundred and fifty thousand cortical columns that together create a model of the outside world.
Humphrey, Nicholas. Sentience. MIT Press, 14 Feb. 2023.
Pinker, Steven. How the Mind Works. W. W. Norton & Company, 22 June 2009.
Schjeldahl, Peter, and Jarrett Earnest. Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light : 100 Art Writings, 1988-2018. New York, Abrams Press, 2019.
I wish I cold write like Peter Schjeldahl! He covers art of all types across all periods. His writing conveys the pleasure, insight and excitement that he finds in art. And then the verve, energy and great vocabulary within his text makes it such a delight to read.
Seth, Anil. Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Faber and Faber, 2022.
Shapiro, Rami. Ecclesiastes. SkyLight, 7 May 2014.
Stephenson, Neal. Snow Crash : A Novel. New York, Del Rey, An Imprint Of Random House, 2017.