One
of my aims is to destroy the generic aspect of an image and find a way to see
directly — to have a first-hand experience. I look for cracks, areas where
representation breaks down, disappears, dissolves, loses a certain homogenous
coherency in order to open and transform the image.
Imagine that you enter a square room and encounter a group of large paintings spread out on four walls. Looking at them, it is not clear where and what you are looking at, and in fact, there is not much to recognise — some trees or mountainous rocks, a lake, but nothing particular about any of the scenes. You find yourself staring at a kind of blank — sometimes a strong glow from the main part of the image, and other times, moving your eyes around the canvas, finding nothing to hold or draw your attention more firmly than any other part of the painting. There is no significant centre, no event, no focus — an encompassing background, with no foreground or entry point — but you keep looking. This act of sustained looking, of fixing your eyes on no particular point, remaining held by a material and visual surface, is a kind of awareness. It breaks the closed circle of generic images and opens the experience to one of seeing through the image the act of seeing itself, to having an actual, physical and immediate experience with an open image.
The opening in an image is the point where a closure can unravel, where and how the image transforms into a singular experience; where it escapes remaining a generic image and becomes a living one.
Imagine that you enter a square room and encounter a group of large paintings spread out on four walls. Looking at them, it is not clear where and what you are looking at, and in fact, there is not much to recognise — some trees or mountainous rocks, a lake, but nothing particular about any of the scenes. You find yourself staring at a kind of blank — sometimes a strong glow from the main part of the image, and other times, moving your eyes around the canvas, finding nothing to hold or draw your attention more firmly than any other part of the painting. There is no significant centre, no event, no focus — an encompassing background, with no foreground or entry point — but you keep looking. This act of sustained looking, of fixing your eyes on no particular point, remaining held by a material and visual surface, is a kind of awareness. It breaks the closed circle of generic images and opens the experience to one of seeing through the image the act of seeing itself, to having an actual, physical and immediate experience with an open image.
The opening in an image is the point where a closure can unravel, where and how the image transforms into a singular experience; where it escapes remaining a generic image and becomes a living one.
