The way we see the world and the way we experience the world are totally different. When we think of memory or experiences then it is often not through the same single point perspective that we associated with our vision. Painting reflects something similar too, paintings were not always dictated by perspective. Before the 15th century, paintings would represent our world through arrangement of figures and objects. This did not have to abide by any rules of distances or viewpoints. These were images that were created through experiences and expressed narratives. In this sense we were not viewing our world through one fixed angle, we see the world from a various points of time with various points of view. In this art, a lot of the time the artists were painting from their own impressions, or constructing worlds that delved into the fantastically. In these cases there were no references for these images to become bases on point perspectives. Instead visions of battles, or encounters with the divine were represented through the interpretations of the artists.
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It a similar vein I feel that the way my images have been created completely adhere to this idea of pre perspective painting. These objects have all individually been created through a single point perspective lens. When they have been collated together we are seeing a version of our world that is realised through multiple lenses at multiple angles and all taken at multiple points of time. When we think about how we experience the world through memory it is often in the manner. We can picture the books or the pens on our desk but trying to create a picture of the desk of a whole perfectly uniformed scaled experience is very hard. If we have a photograph of that desk then it becomes a little easier to remember the photograph than what we are actually seeing.
With my work we have this ‘photograph’ to form a base. It has been created by Matisse. As a painting Matisse has used scale and perspective to create his image. Within the frame we see how objects are interacting in relation to one another. But in my image there is something very different happening. At first we believe that this is a simple image. But the image quickly falls apart. The eye is incredibly good at spotting mistakes in perspective and once something seem just a little bit off then the rest of the image becomes very unstable. At the same time we can clearly define each object. Each element becomes very relatable, there is nothing strange about the picture of the lemon by its self, but in the context of the jug that is just next to it, that has a different lighting or shot at a lower angle then the separation becomes clear. In our sight we know where things belong in relation to the other but the experience and memory of a collection of items becomes completely different. It is through experience, memory and interpretation that caused pre 15th century painters to paint in the manner that they did. It was these perceived experiences that allowed a narrative to flow through these images. It is clear that a representation of our world does not have to be constrained by the qualities of a lens. Even though my work has been made possible through the capture of images from a lens the way that it has been constructed creates a multi faceted, dynamic image that sits on a thin boarder between familiarity and unfamiliarity.