2023 > 2023 Mirage Series

In my watercolor paintings called The Mirage Series from 2022 and 2023 and extending into 2025 I am utilizing horizontal bands of color that are often blurred and sometimes overlap. Horizontal bands naturally evoke landscape but can also point to the stratification of geologic time. Horizons are seen from a distance and are a point that we cannot touch but can only see with our limited visual senses. Geologic stratification is a record of change over vast periods of time and is like a snapshot of the past. Both of these perspectives are illusionistic.

In The Mirage Series I am visually investigating the definition of a mirage, which is defined as an optical illusion that the eyes and mind interpret incorrectly and which is translated by the mind and senses into a visual illusion perceived as real. As one approaches a mirage, contrary to one's expectations, one slowly realizes the vision is not reality. As an affirmative reassurance, humans naturally seek proof of the real or what is true, but perceived reality can also be seen as more of a dream world than a concrete reality. The origins of what we perceive are actually an abstraction buried in time and across space, subject to the limitations of our sensory perceptions. While we seek more certainty through the use of mechanical means like microscopes and vast telescopes, for many these instruments don't necessarily create a greater sense of the real. In our current world we are more and more unable to establish concrete affirmation. The lines between the real and the unreal, the true and the false, are constantly blurred like the appearance of a distant mirage.