Mirage Painting

The reflection is also an inversion of the subject. In these works I have painted only what is reflected and have intentionally omitted their source. Although this approach can be described as phenomenological (ie. based on direct observation of the subject), the inversion of the subject , observation over time, use of aerial photography and the play on spatial references serve to remove the final image even further from the reflection's source. This approach could be likened to that of the neo-Expressionist German artist Georg Baselitz. By deliberately painting an image upside down, rather than simply inverting the finished work, Baselitz hit on a method of objectifying the work of art without entering the realm of pure abstraction or allowing the motif to predominate (Rosenthal, 2007). Although, reflections are inverted, what is perhaps equally disconcerting is the absence of that which is reflected, and which therefore needs to be added by the viewer’s imagination. This process can be likened metaphorically to a mirage (Latin to wonder at), a displaced image; its original source remaining out of sight. The topographical reality of the subject becomes a space of illusion and yet, at the same time, a real space ordered within the frame of the art work, except that it seems to remain outside of time.