Reflections
Short essays and studio reflections on perception, representation, architecture, photography, and the systems through which we construct meaning. These texts are not explanations of the work so much as notes from an ongoing investigation.
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A Question and a Theory
Here’s a question: If the present was percieved as a dimensionless membrane dividing the past from the future, could we experience consciousness? Could a mind exist on such a temporal knife’s edge? That leads to a theory: As a precursor to consciousness, evolution developed in brains a concept of ‘now’ that included a short period…
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What is Now?
Here is paradox about time that dates back to Aristotle: The past does not exist any longer. The future does not exist yet. And the present is just the threshold at which the future turns into the past and has no duration. The present is a nothing that divides two things that don’t exist: the…
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Time and the Landscape
It takes time to see a landscape and it takes time to look at a picture of a landscape. Our vision only allows for a narrow cone, 2 degrees, of detailed vision. What we see is a construction, a fabrication of what our mind thinks is out there in the world. In the landscape its…
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Navigating Towards a Hazy Horizon
Smoke from forest fires has descended like fog, a brownish, yellowish smog. Over the lake the horizon is obscured. We’re losing our bearings and can’t find reference points. We have to move forward carefully. What does the future hold in store?
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Discombobulated – Recombobulated
You can hardly help it. Its as though you’re pre-programmed to interpret random shapes as discernable objects: animals, faces, buildings and landscapes. Spend any time looking at randomly churning clouds and you’ll see all manner of fantastic creations. Slowly, and inevitably, these apparitions dissolve and your mind serves up new illusions.
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The Micromegascope
Clouds having passed through the micromegascope. Micro Megas is the name of a series of drawings from 1979 by the architect Daniel Libeskind.They use the language of architectural drawing: plans, sections and axonometrics, but they don’t resolve into concrete representation; they float free of gravity, scale, and dimension, full of ambiguous potential. Libeskind got the…
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Cloud Maps
There’s a set repertoire of conditions and patterns, but the results are infinitely variable. Every day brings new vistas of changing colours, between a towering sky an ever-shifting water surface. The mind wanders through clouds. Fantastic landscapes, impossible cities, forests, animals, and strange creatures make brief ephemeral appearances. Slowly all these apparitions dissolve, replaced by…
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Dream Journal
When the pandemic first hit, I started having strange vivid dreams. I was not alone in this, and the experience can readily be explained by the pervasive collective anxiety we all felt. For me, these dreams were a bright spark in otherwise dark time, because they provided rich imagery for new work. Think of the…
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Clouds And Waves
The Clouds and Waves paintings are based on computer assisted abstractions of sky and water. The final pieces have, however, been produced in a very tactile manner: digital composites, woven tapestries as well as carved, painted wood. Eastern Gap Originally concieved in 2019, this piece was not installed until the fall of 2020. It is…