Ganzfeld

Transient hypo-frontality, or the Deep Now. This is the name researchers give to the flow state that humans may encounter when they meditate, take psychedelics, or become fully absorbed into an activity like running or painting.

It’s something I encountered when experiencing one of James Turrell’s light installations in Naoshima, Japan. Turrell uses the Ganzfeld technique, whereby a uniform light field lulls your eyes into a state of perceptual deprivation. After a period, your brain responds by looking for the missing variation in light signals – and you are able to see things that seemed previously invisible or impossible. It’s like an extreme version of your eyes adjusting to the darkness at night – but much more disorientating. Your brain disagrees with what your eyes are seeing. And in that moment, nothing else exists.

This painting relates to some elements of that experience: the sensation of stepping through a television screen into an unreality beyond. I’ve always been intrigued by frames painted directly onto canvas. It gives a sense of distance - both in terms of actual perspective of a painting, as well as the idea of there being a story contained inside. I like to think this one takes the painted frame of a Howard Hodgkin, and gives it a Turrellian twist.