Galerie Trois Points

David Gillanders

Consult artist’s CV | Artist’s website

I recently heard a scientist on the radio speak of “the apparent reality of the material universe”. So what are we missing?

The world we perceive is a moving target. At best, we only get bits of it. Whether we are looking at the physical world around us or listening to our closest companion, our perceptions are imperfect.

Our biology allows us to see, hear, smell, touch and taste, but within limits. Dogs, for example, hear sounds we don’t. Birds have the ability to perceive magnetism. Our brains and our senses have evolved into systems that work for us. But our biology doesn’t give us the whole picture.

And then there is a great deal around us to which we’re simply not paying attention, or that we choose to ignore.

And what about all we do perceive but fail to understand? I suppose the gap between existence and our idea of it is immeasurable.

My work takes this gap as a starting point. The paintings invite us to consider the idea that we are surrounded by much that we fail to see or comprehend. They present a shifting, incomplete world of ambiguous fragments. Certainty eludes us, uncertainty is perhaps only natural. The paintings are facts in their own right; each one a particular image and object. In each of them there is something there. But there is always something more, something missing.

David Gillanders

September 2007