perception
is an activity
The proces of
human perception has an active and a passive aspect. The passive
aspect is: the impression, going into the eye. But, having one's
eyes open does not mean you actually see something. An active process
has to take plaze: one registers, names, recognizes what one sees.
When native inhabitants near the amazone first saw a western ship,
they actually didn't see it, even when it was pointed out to them.
They couldn't because they had no reference to it, in their world
of concepts. Only after putting the word, name, or concept on the
impression, one can speak of perception. .Seeing is an activity
that everyone performs in his of her own way. A lot of un- and halfconscious
thinking-activity is involved in this process.
I started painting
as a photographer. Painting to me is a form of active photography.
Not just everything around us is an objective and given fact, your
way of perception is a given fact too. One can learn to find out
about this activity, by getting to know your own system. In that,
you can find out about yourself and the way you react to the world
around you.
Theory of colour
has my interest since a long time, and through Goethe's vision on
this subject I could start to compare processes of colour to processes
of (my own) perception and consciousness. By mapping different types
of colourprocesses, I could map my own processes of perception,
and ways of becoming conscious. I made studies in paint, which were
not meant to be art, but were made purely for the sake of research.
In this way, I explored the logic that is inhibited in colour. I
try, over and over, to enter the more unconsious realms of consiousness
and perception. Painting then becomes a tool, that allows the hands
to express what the body knows. Feeling and sensing becomes wordless
understanding, another form of knowlegde.
It's a way to
bring painting to life. When the creative process of an artwork
is in line with certain processes of perception, the work gets immersed
whith content, almost as if beings are coming who incarnate themselves
in the work. A gesture of the brush, or a blurred spot of colour
can become a carrier of something that has a life of its own. Effects
like this guide you through the work. You can use it for your own
purposes, but so-called abstract painting can also become a form
to register feelings or elemental beings. In my work, I have a dialogue
with the things that ensoul it, and from that I learn.
back
up.
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