Ian's Challenge - May

Memories, is the name of this dreamscape. It is a collection of images from places I’ve been to. I created it especially for a group exhibit whose common theme was about ghostly images, apparitions and dreams.

I chose these images because they deal with seeing. Some of the images are looking out, towards you, the viewer, while others are from the viewer’s perspective looking into and beyond the picture itself.

I used the doors, gates and passageways in the piece to act as vehicles that allow us to see from one world into another. Dreams have been said to act as doorways to the underworld or unknown. Even in the Bible, God and Angels communicate through dreams. Mystics and sorcerers travel through time and communicate with symbolic animals to heal and counteract the evil spirits' power over an individual or community. Dreams give us unlimited power to travel unbound to the past, the present, and the future. They act like worm holes defying gravity, space, and time.

I wanted to create an uneasy feeling by the juxtaposing dark, eerie, mystical images of gates and passageways guarded by supernatural beings to the more bucolic and pastoral landscapes just beyond the confining walls that keep us in.

This piece was intended to be a literal storyboard of a dream I might have had based on my own true experiences.