Drumhead Series |
Vorticity Series |
In the early 20th Century, Surrealist artists used realistic techniques to depict the content of their subconscious minds. They chose as their subjects visions from their dreams, and often nightmares, as well as images that arose unbidden and unfiltered by conscious thought. They used trompe l’oeil techniques to make these visions manifest as an alternate reality.
A century later – at the start of the 21st Century and a new millennium – people have a more sophisticated understanding of how the Universe works. The reality of sense perception is no longer the only reality. What counts is the reality of the mind. Ideas are more important than physical objects. No longer lost in a murky world of unconscious thought, or slave to the rigors of physical reality, the mind becomes free to imagine beyond the bounds of what used to be called “Objective Reality.”
Objective Reality Isn’t
Informed by this more sophisticated view, Scientific Surrealism uses the same realistic rendering to make abstract concepts manifest in a new alternate reality – the reality of the mind. It is a mind inhabited by multidimensional images that often transcend space and time. Full of motion, form and color, a Scientific Surrealist artwork asks the viewer to participate in the creative process by imagining the ideas depicted. The artist is no longer throwing a static image out into the world, and saying: “Here it is!” The artist becomes a guide inviting the viewer to make a journey into the realm of imagination.
