The trouble with being seen, is being seen.

The trouble with being seen, is being seen. There is an indignity attached to being an artist in the modern age: people expect you to explain the thing you have just spent three months trying not to explain. I was looking at one of my new paintings the other day and realised it had become more interesting than I was. This is generally the point where I become suspicious.

The work appears to be about recognition, although I’m not entirely sure recognition is such a great thing. We spend our lives wanting to be seen, then spend the rest of our lives wondering who exactly is doing the looking.

Social media has made this worse. Everyone is now permanently auditioning for the role of themselves. The photograph, the opinion, the breakfast, the holiday, the perfectly lit dog — all evidence submitted to the court of public approval.

And yet a painting can sit quietly on a wall for years without asking anyone to like it.
Perhaps that is why I keep returning to speechless creatures, text fragments, shrouded faces and things that seem slightly out of place. They don’t need to perform. They simply exist, looking back at us with the unnerving confidence of something that knows we are the ones being observed.

Art has always been a peculiar arrangement between the lookers and the makers. We think we are looking at the painting, but somewhere along the way the painting starts looking back at us.
And that, frankly, is when things get interesting.