“The world is… the natural setting of, and field for, all my thoughts and all my explicit perceptions. Truth does not inhabit only the inner man, or more accurately, there is no inner man, man is in the world, and only in the world does he know himself. ” – Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Through my painting, I show how we perceive the world around us most of the time. Most objects are generalized to the most extreme point of abstraction possible without it losing its meaning. Some objects retain details as long as they hold our focus. This relationship is always in flux, and all of it is necessary to feel grounded in the space.
Being in the world requires a person to navigate an infinite and constant stream of stimuli from a limited perspective. Things come in and out of focus as the mind makes millions of decisions about relevancy in any given moment. And still, even when a thing has been pushed beyond the edges of perception as to be totally forgotten, the thing continues to push on the individual with its undeniable existence.
We are never able to forget we are in the world. It is only by being in the world that we can know we exist.
