PROCESS

My current process developed from my earlier "Echoform" and "Superposition" series (press button below to view series).

Instead of planning these multiple states in previous work I now begin spontaneously with automatic drawing and allow unpredictable marks to form across the canvas. Through pareidolia, I search these marks for possible faces, bodies, expressions and gestures.

The influence of "Echo Form" remains in the overlapping and merging figures, but the difference is that these possibilities are now discovered through chance rather than constructed in advance with the addition of automatism and interpreted via pareidolia.

Superposition Button

Click on button above to view "Superposition" series

Echoform Button

Click on button above to view "Echoform" series

Reenacting the Process of Interpreting Uncertainty and figures as a vehicle to the process.

This page documents the making of Don't Look at Me, a painting that serves as a blueprint for my current artistic practice and future development.

My work explores how the human mind interprets uncertainty and constructs meaning from incomplete information. I translate this everyday mental activity into a painting process through automatic drawing and pareidolia, allowing unpredictable marks to develop into recognisable forms through observation and interpretation.

As an introvert, social interaction has a significant effect on me. I often imagine possible encounters with people before they happen, anticipating their behaviour, emotions and how I might respond. This experience influences my decision to use human figures as vehicles for exploring the process.

The figures I discover and develop through painting often contain multiple expressions and psychological states, much like how my mind constructs different possibilities about people I have yet to meet. They are not representations of actual individuals, but imagined possibilities shaped by memories, assumptions and expectations.

Through this approach, the painting reenacts the movement from uncertainty to observation, recognition and interpretation, making visible how the mind attempts to understand what it does not yet know.

(Act A) Automatic drawing

(Act B) Finding and interpreting thorugh pereidolia

(Act C) Final work

01 — Automatic Drawing

This automatic drawing created a field of overlapping lines without a predetermined composition or subject.

Automatic drawing

Press video

ROOTS IN SURREALIST AUTOMATISM

The video above is my attempt at creating a field of overlapping lines without a predetermined composition or subject. My earlier experiments with superposition first introduced me to the possibilities created by overlapping forms. In my current practice, however, I no longer use those overlaps to represent predetermined psychological states. Instead, they create an unfamiliar visual field that I can observe, search and interpret.

This process has roots in Surrealist automatism, while automatism sought to reduce conscious control, I use it to create an uncertain visual field that gives me something unfamiliar to observe and interpret.

Like observing unfamiliar people in everyday life, I begin with what I can see, then form possibilities from incomplete information.

02 — Finding Figures Through Pareidolia

Pareidolia

Press video 1

Pareidolia

Press video 2

Finding Figures — Pareidolia

After the automatic drawing is complete, I spend time looking through the marks. Certain intersections begin to resemble eyes, mouths, heads or bodies. I follow these suggestions instead of correcting them into conventional anatomy.

Through pareidolia, I search the marks for faces, bodies, expressions and gestures.

Like recognising someone in a dream, sometimes I feel that I know what I am looking at even when the image is incomplete or unclear.

I do not sketch these figures beforehand. They are discovered and developed directly on the canvas. This immediacy is important because it parallels the unpredictability of everyday observation: I do not know beforehand who will attract my attention, what I will notice, or what interpretations may arise.

03 — Interpreting and Combining Figures

Before

After

Interpreting & Combining by developing the figures

Different expressions and psychological possibilities may appear within the same marks. Instead of choosing only one, I sometimes combine them into a single figure.

This continues my earlier interest in "Echoform" series , showing several possible states at the same time.

As different characters emerge, I begin interpreting their expressions, gestures and actions.

Features overlap and merge, allowing different expressions and psychological possibilities to coexist within one character.

This retains an important element from my earlier Echo Form works: the possibility of several states existing within a single figure. In Echo Form, I deliberately constructed these possibilities beforehand. In the current process, they emerge through chance, observation and interpretation.

Final product

Don't look at me

2026

167cm by 152cm

Acrylic on canvas

Don’t Look at Me began without a fixed subject or story. I started with automatic drawing, then used pareidolia to find possible human forms within the spontaneous marks. I gradually developed the figures by using my fingers and hands as painting tools to shape and merge the forms. Overlapping faces suggest different psychological states within a single figure.

The crowd does not represent a specific place or group. It emerged through a painting process that reenacts the human activity of observation and interpretation. As I search the marks and interpret the figures I find, the process reflects how I observe unfamiliar people and imagine possibilities about their moods, personalities and behaviour from limited information.

The title came only after the painting was finished, when I noticed a figure partly hidden within the crowd, with little more than its eyes visible. I began to see this figure as a reflection of myself—present among others, yet wanting to avoid attention.

The work reflects my process-based practice: I begin with uncertainty, recognise possible forms, and interpret what gradually appears. Viewers can then approach the finished crowd in a similar way, bringing their own assumptions and experiences to what they see.

My technique.

Technique Press video 01

Technique Press video 02

Fast application to capture the imagination in my head

I paint primarily with my hands as a tool to transfer paint onto the canvas with my fingers and palms brushing directly on the surface to push, smear, drag and layer the paint without the limitation of a conventional tool.

The hands gives me control, but never complete precision. A fingerprint, dragged edge or uneven pressure can alter a figure unexpectedly, giving me another mark to respond to.

This allows chance to remain present throughout the painting process. The work begins with marks I cannot fully predict, figures are discovered within them, and even while developing those figures, my hands continue to introduce unexpected possibilities.

What I conclude from my artistic journey

Artistic Development: Recognising Myself in Others

From superposition to Echo Form, and eventually to automatic drawing and pareidolia, my artistic journey has been a continuous exploration of uncertainty and interpretation.

What I find most fulfilling through this development is the discovery that interpreting others can also reveal something about myself.

What I recognise in the figures does not come from the marks alone. My memories, experiences and assumptions influence how I interpret them.

What begins as an attempt to understand something outside myself ultimately becomes a way of recognising the observer within.

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CONTINUE TO OTHER WORKS

See different paintings from same process.

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