I have been exploring these for some time – is it really 6 months since I last posted anything? Time flies …..
I have made the ‘background’ (what my mind sees as ‘not the image’) black for some scribble creatures, like these ones.
Funny sort of creatures, aren’t they? They seem to have such distinct personalities, you could begin to make up lives for each one; real caricatures. Feel free, anyone, to suggest their story!
I just came across this great photographer in Timemachine magazine. This is beautiful, evocative work – have a look! It is all about the changes taking place in Hungary and central Europe, with such a sense of loss and mystery. Tamas Dezso
I can’t leave this alone, it seems. Does this help? A foolish looking creature, a little crazed, definitely suffering; but then the series is called “Fools and Innocents”, so it fits. I will make a new page of the series as soon as I find the time, and they may (hopefully) make sense as a group.
I am wondering if other people see what I see in these scribbly bark images. It’s a matter of perception, of figure/ground differentiation; what seems figurative to me is perhaps an abstract and meaningless mess of lines to many others.
Maybe I can make it clearer like this:
This is the image:
And this is the image again. I have darkened all the ‘background’ areas, and emphasized the left ‘eye’.
Does that make it clearer? Can you see the connection with Easter? It is a peculiarity of perception that once your brain has ‘seen’ something which makes sense to it in an otherwise random pattern, especially a face, you keep seeing only that face and it looks really obvious to you – but not necessarily to anyone else. I would love some feedback on this.
I am fascinated with the work of Joan Fontcuberta. He constantly questions our acceptance of the photograph because of its appearance of reality – yes I know everyone is aware of fakes, of photoshopped models, etc etc, but we still tend to give credence to photographic evidence despite that. That is to me the interesting thing about digital post production work, that you can, as it were, paint with reality (or the appearance of it). Like this lovely creature from his Fauna series …..
http://www.eyecurious.com/interview-joan-fontcuberta-landscapes-without-memory/
Scribbly bark scribbles are the ultimate Rorschach Test of the bush! (For those unfortunates without ready access to the Australian bush, there are tiny insects which burrow under the bark of the Scribbly Gum eucalypts and leave these wonderful patterns. Each year the tree sheds most of its outer bark and reveals a new set of scribbles. Infinite variety!) With a little help from photoshop to emphasise what I see and produce something which looks rather like an etching, here is the first of a selection of Scribbles.
Trish Neil 
