Like Picasso, de Kooning, and others who tried to capture what was below the surface, I am informed by the science of my time, and an exciting time it is for mind research. The work of Donald Hoffman and others who are mapping the conceptual mind is truly fascinating. "Reality" isn't real it turns out, but a mechanism for us to navigate a reality that is too complex to understand without us conceptualizing avatars. Those have been evolving for millennia. The concepts of time and space as we know them are fiction as well. So what is reality really like? Who are we without the concepts and DNA (coded concepts) that shape us? What does it look like for past, present, and future to be all happening at once? And can this notion of "free will" be true?
These are all questions I grapple with in my art. This series is about exploring the conceptual framework that we call "self."
“Spacetime is your virtual reality, a headset of your own making. The objects you see are your invention. You create them with a glance and destroy them with a blink. You have worn this headset all your life. What happens if you take it off?”
⎯ Donald Hoffman, The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes (2019)
Each of these works start out as a small sculpture that I create using a 3D pen. I then cast the light onto the sculpture and the resulting shadows on the painting surface and begin composing. I build up layer upon layer so to convey idea that past, present and future are all happening simultaneously. The little sculptures don't usually survive the process and are just used as tools to create the painting.
