The work looks at reflective objects, surfaces and realities from a philosophical, metaphorical and visual standpoint. The fundamental area of enquiry in the work is the reflective quality of these objects and the environment into which they are placed. With the use of video, cd-rom creation software, high-end animation software and holographics, the work delves into three and four-dimensional illusionistic projections. With the addition of time as a fourth dimension, paradoxes of stillness and movement further stretch parameters to embrace the events that take place around the reflections.
The work follows three main areas of interest all rooted in a sense of visual interaction, space and time. The first of these interests being the environment around the reflective objects/surfaces, and how these reflections affect this reality. Environments of concern include supermarkets, cathedrals, places of residence, ruins or sites of historical importance, contemporary buildings and traditional buildings of significance. All environments are considered.
The second line of enquiry is Time.
"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know: if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not: yet I say boldly that I know, that if nothing passed away, time past were not; and if nothing were coming, a time to come were not; and if nothing were, time present were not. These two times then, passed and to come, how are they, seeing the past now is not, and that to come is not yet? But the present, should it always be present and never pass into time past, verily it should not be time but eternity".
"It might be properly said: there be three times; the present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future. For these three do exist in some sort, in the soul, but otherwise do I not see them; present of things past, memory; present of things present, sight; present of things future, expectation". Confessions. (St. Augustine - written 397-398)
"Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perceptual possibility
Only in a world of speculation." (T. S. Eliot - Four Quartets)
The third area of interest is the illusionistic element of the work. My interests in illusionistic art stem from studies I made into the artist, M. C. Escher. Escher shows us that reality is wondrous, comprehensible and that we as artists are capable of manipulating this actuality to read as we choose.
"I try in my work to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in chaos without norms, even though that is how it sometimes appears. My subjects are also often playful: I cannot refrain from demonstrating the nonsensicalness of some of what we take to be irrefutable certainties. It is, for example, a pleasure to deliberately mix together objects of two and three dimensions, surface and spatial relationships, and to make fun of gravity." (M. C. Escher)