Last Trip To California 2018 oil, canvas
The series consists of twelve works. Each work consists of blank canvas pieces and parts of a painting sewn together.
I disrupt the integrity of the overall image of each piece by covering part of the work with a piece of blank, gray canvas. The viewer’s gaze stumbles upon the rectangle pieces of canvas, which acts like a kind of annoying barrier, a wall that prevents them from perceiving the image in the way that they are used to. The trained brain is content with the minimum amount of information it receives through sight and more likely “guess” what the image is rather than “sees” it.
We have our senses of perception and possess certain knowledge, ideas, and convictions that collectively allow us to “create” our own familiar realities in real-time. The blank canvas symbolizes the raw, inaccessible reality that is beyond the scope of human perception. It is on the “surface” of this raw material that we “draw” our own realities and lives. The gray, raw pieces of canvas sewn in destroy the illusion of the image, underneath which lies the physical, material basis of the picture.
How much of the image can be removed without the viewer no longer being able to recognize what the image is of? It turns out that all it takes is a few recognizable details, such as a part of a tree, a stone, a wave, are enough for the brain to “complete” the entire landscape, the image. The “story” of the image prevails – the grey canvas only acts as a veil that slightly obscures the narrative that the artist wants to tell. The brain fills in the blanks based on what it is familiar and remains satisfied.
Only when the sewn in canvas is large enough to cover almost the entirety of the picture, reaching the edges of it, does the image transform from the representative into the abstract. The viewer sees the composition as a collection of abstract colors and shapes and does not try to guess what the content of the image is. The rectangle piece of sewn in canvas becomes a natural part of the composition.
