When you get into the practice of seeing intentionally, you realize how much of what we accept as the physical world around us is a fiction, a convenient shorthand that the brain uses because it couldn’t possibly process all the data streaming in through the senses. And that data is already tightly restricted by the limitations of our organs - the eyes only see 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum. Many insects and birds see in the ultraviolet range and bats and other echolocators have a whole other system to ‘see’ objects with. Even blind snakes can locate prey by body temperature.
There are two aspects of seeing that fascinate me when I practice intentionally shutting off my brain’s shorthand function. First, it takes effort- I have to pay constant attention to what I’m trying to recreate through oil paint. This is much like meditation when I catch my monkey brain running off with my thoughts and have to come back to that still point where I can just watch the thoughts arising. Likewise, my art technique benefits when I don’t grasp too tightly at the idea that the result has to match a preconceived form. Better to accept each brush stroke as it falls and to redo without remorse any passage that’s not working. Then of course, as attributed to da Vinci, “Art is never finished, only abandoned”.
Second, I discover how the brain is tricked into seeing an object that is, in reality, only a collection of colors on a flat surface and so I learn how to paint anew with every canvas. Art contains so many approaches to triggering a response in the viewer’s brain, from the simple recognition of say, an apple, to the empathic anguish of a Guernica. Sometimes it’s fun to see how little information is needed to create the trompe-l'oeil, ‘trick-the-eye’, effect. It can be just a couple of lines; the brain insists on seeing humans in stick figures.
I particularly enjoy emulating the masters of classical painting, like Bouguereau, whose work is nearly photorealistic. And I like to make even the incidental parts of my paintings rich with detail and interest. I want the viewer to take time with the worlds I’m creating and be surprised by what appears with a prolonged visit as their eyes wander beyond the obvious subject to find the bit players in the cast. As the artist, I do the ‘seeing’ so that the viewer can look into my canvasses and have their own experience. I love it when someone walks into my studio for the first time and says, “Whoa….”