Artist Statement
Perceptions
“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narow chinks of his cavern.” – Blake

This series is a challenge to what perception truly is. Vision has been equated with “knowing” even though it is nothing more than a chemical response to the light that passes through the lens of the eye. Vision at best is a second hand way of knowing the world; all that can be perceived is light that has been reflected off of objects. When people look at an image reflected in a mirror they do not feel that the reflection is real, yet when it is reflected by the “mirrors” in one’s own eye that image is deemed reality.
Plato spoke of a cave where images were displayed on the back wall, but these images were only representation of the “real” world and those that believed that these images were real would never have a true understanding of the actual world they lived in. For Plato the world of the real existed outside of the cave; outside of the eye.

“Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.” - Pablo Picasso

Our misunderstanding about perception is ingrained so deeply that it colors much of our language.
For instance, we say “I see” when what we really mean is that that we understand something. Someone is called “blind” when they lack understanding - blind to the truth or blind to some fact which others see as obvious. Look in almost any dictionary and you find synonyms for blindness that include words like: unknowing, unquestioning, careless, heedless, ignorant, imperceptive, inattentive, inconsiderate, indiscriminate, injudicious, insensitive, neglectful, oblivious, thoughtless, unaware, unconscious, undiscerning, unmindful, unobservant, unreasoning… it goes on and on.
Clearly this is not reality but rather one of those shadowy images that is cast upon the cave wall. What then is reality? What is Perception?
My series is an effort to answer these questions; not in words but in paint and canvas – by using images to understand perception. The masked man on TV and in the movies hides his identity by covering his eyes, and through this simple act hides all that he is. The identities of villains and even fictitious heroes such as Spiderman and Batman all fade into oblivion purely by covering their eyes. My paintings focus on the eyes and the very area that a mask would cover thereby “unmasking” the subject of the painting giving no place for the emotions and the truth of the person to hide. You look at my paintings, but very often they look back.

“I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.” - Vincent van Gogh