These videos, and accompanying audio files and texts, echo the technical and thematic visual disruptions present in my work and simulate more accurately than static images the biology and psychology of how the eye perceives and moves around a painting. Looking at paintings is a sensory, bodily experience that requires physical presence; viewers must stand in their space to encounter them fully. These videos aim to offer a more immersive online experience in their absence. 

As you watch, notice how the ‘eye’ skims, pauses to absorb information, goes in and out of focus, and adapts to areas of high and low contrast, is pulled by impasto that catch both real and painted light, and becomes slowly aware of details initially obscured. The paint and motifs disrupt the eye’s movement, slowing the reading of the work. Be attentive to how your eyes respond—what attracts you, what sensations arise, the escapism close looking can bring. Are you rooted in reality, or is your mind free to wander? Where do you prefer to be? Is it still paint or for a moment did you feel snow? Can you let go? What do you need to release to get there? How do your eye movements make you feel: confused, calm, euphoric? 

Sound enhances this experience, simulating real-life viewing (please turn sound on for fuller viewing). You may hear the viewer next to you, conversations, building works... and sometimes may even fall inside the painting and hear its painted environment, perhaps hear icy wind blowing off a mountain pass. The different sound environments mirror the different states, feelings and moments in time in which the works were made, and how they might end up, split in different collections with new meanings, contexts and experiences ascribed, becoming layers in someone else's states of consciousness.

The antepenultimate static image contrasts sharply, feeling lifeless online and underscoring the reductive limitations of 2D digital reproductions, which lose much of the empathetic texture and physicality essential to my paintings. Scroll to the very bottom for a playful take around this.

This viewing room and website will continually be in flux to reflect up to the minute work and interests, its images, design and wording mirroring shifting states of consciousness.