Tasked with painting a still life composed of boxes and bottles in shades of white and black, with oil paints in shades of white and black, it’s easy for a scientist like me to think about the usual suspects of depth cues as a path to success. After all, if depth cues are what we use to interpret the environment, then using them should translate to a successful painting, paint skill notwithstanding. Continue reading “In the deep: depth cues and still life”
Thomas Demand presented his work at William & Mary recently. His pieces span sculpture and photography, and, a number of them are based on exploiting some compelling properties of paper. His work entitled “Poll”, seen at MOMA, presents the relationship between becoming U.S. President-elect and measured change in polling paper (see below).
Museum of Modern Art Thomas Demand’s “Poll” (2001), based on a photograph of a Florida recount station.
Poll, 2001, C-Print / Diasec, 180 x 260 cm© Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn / ARS, New York
When the idea of the aesthetic experience is juxtaposed with intention and skill of the artist, the consideration about what or how a work is perceived or successful can get distorted. I like the challenge of trying to resolve what our cellular receptive fields respond to with how that may be competition with what we, as human observers, think we see.
Our visual system works for us in strange and unimaginable ways.
It’s easy for us to recognize that the complex scenes before our eyes shift almost continually: the images in the movie theater, the traffic on the highway, the speakers in the boardroom. Continue reading “Left and right”
visualparticles.org 