Perceiving Perceptions

As an artists I am interested in perceptions and how they are formed. I
always find myself thinking about how other people view the world
around them, and how these opinions of the world are often extremely
polarized. I want to examine how good can exist in evil and evil can
exist in good. Essentially, instead of trying to separate issues into merely black or white, I want to display both the black and the white of social issues simultaneously, and doing so will expose the social constructs of our society and encourage the viewer to ponder the morality and ethics of our world.

There is a psycological theory called selective attention. Basically it states that we can only pay attention to a limited amount of all of the stimuli around us. In other words, it is impossible for us to fully experience any experience. I
find thistheory very interesting and want to appropriate it from its psychological roots and apply it to a more sociological role. In other words, instead of focusing
on physical stimuli, I want to look more at ethics and how they can be
skewed and taken out of context when we start to rationalize things.

There can be good in evil and evil in good. Take gated communities for
example. We build beautiful house and try to make them safe and
exclusive. In doing so we inevitably create not only safety, but also
isolation from our surroundings destroying a sense of community. So,
safety is good, but at what cost? On the flip side of this idea, we
could think about drug addicts. In their situation they have a terrible
addiction that has the potential to ruin their life and the lives of
those around them. However, even crackheads still get that occasional
moment of bliss. I am interested indepicting these types of duality in my artwork.

Essentially,my work is about duality of perception, and how we perceive cultural
issues around us. Instead of taking an issue and polarizing it to make
social commentary, I want to show both the positive and the negative of
an issue. The scenery really depends on the view.