I had a bad dream that I was a very, very good singer / See how the wind helicopters my arms into lifting me
What do you see in this? It’s the classic psychologist’s enquiry, but instead of interpreting a set of inkblots while reclining on a comfortable couch, we are in an art gallery, asking ourselves the question in front of two seemingly abstract canvases, each buzzing with an oscillating field of coloured squares. Scott Flanagan’s current works reveal his interest in the act of seeing, but it is not only the physical process that fascinates him; the process of perception and the mind’s desire to manufacture meaning are also within his sights.
The discernment of a recognisable and meaningful image in a random visual or sound pattern is a common human response known to psychologists as pareidolia. It includes seeing faces or other familiar forms in clouds and cliff-faces or hearing hidden messages in the static interference from a badly tuned radio. Some of the most famous examples involve the ‘appearance’ of religious images in a variety of unexpected places, from pretzels and tortillas to dirty windows and oil-stained concrete. The famous Rorschach inkblot test exploits the human tendency towards pareidolia by inviting patients to interpret of a series of abstract patterns in order to reveal possible thought and personality disorders. From the man in the moon to the face of Elvis in a cheese pizza, the shapes people conjure up relate to, and are limited by, their personal experience and frames of reference, and are therefore often disappointingly predictable. It stands to reason that you are unlikely to perceive a camel in the seeds of a pomegranate if you do not know what a camel looks like.
Interpreting what we see according to our experiences, associations and values is, of course, a process that applies as readily to viewing art as it does to cloud-watching, and the genre of abstract painting offers particularly fertile ground. Though his previous works have involved a variety of media including collage, photography, performance and found objects, here Flanagan has returned to the classic materials of oil and canvas, deliberately and ironically aligning himself with a long, often esoteric tradition, and highlighting the privileged, coded realm of the painted space. In reality, these laboriously patterned compositions have no more intrinsic meaning than any other similarly sized section of a gallery wall or floor, or indeed the space between them; to the human eye each given surface is as alive with visual information as the next. It is the cultural context of the gallery and art-making that allows us to ‘read’ and comprehend this painting as a painting. The stippled surfaces of Flanagan’s paintings intentionally stimulate our optical responses, just as his lyrical titles kick our imaginations into overdrive. In the end, what we perceive is an unpredictable and uncertain synthesis of wave function, memory, cultural conditioning and even what we think we should be seeing. And that is a combination that demands, and rewards, a closer look.
Text by Felicity Milburn
