Carla Dearman

The history of my artistic career began, as many often do, as purely play. Paintbrush and paper were the toys and the tools that transformed daydreams into new realities. Over the years these paintings and drawings have become paths to explore my own mind and visual perception, as well as to understand the world that I am a part of. 

It seems that this world, with its borders, and demarcations, conceals interconnectedness and masks awareness and understanding.  It is my belief that some are capable of seeing beyond this reductive state of awareness and perceiving something more than the widely sanctioned reality. The study of visual perception offers considerable evidence that the perception of the world or the image is subjective. We are active interpreters of the world, not passive cameras, and sight often dominates the way we 'see' this world.

Apart from the idea of sight as purely physiological is the possibility of seeing beyond. This heightened visual perception often appears in the form of dream or hallucination and is no less 'real' than any other visual stimulus, in fact it can seem more so.  It is during these states of awareness that what is normally hidden is suddenly revealed.  My understanding of the diminished perception of the everyday and the possibility of moving beyond it is what inspires my artwork. 

What possibilities await those who consciously shed this reduced awareness?  They may be able to perceive, for a moment at least, another world which exposes the false demarcation between human and non-human and reveals the interconnection of all things.