Dylan Vandenhoeck
Region: MFA Annual
We understand space—first shallow, then distant—through
touch. We rely on the correlation of what something feels like and
what it looks like. The process of painting is the same, but more
mysterious and basic.
The physical thought process of painting makes it the ideal
medium for me to use to confront the phenomenology of
experiences that can be seen or felt but not touched: sunspots,
afterimages, and entoptic phenomena. I’ve found something
existential in entoptic phenomena, which make me consider
where and how I locate myself in space as I consider the
constructed nature of seemingly immediate perceptions.
The sun illuminates, the sun blinds . . . But it does so brilliantly,
because the residual sunspot bruises in vibrant turquoises
and quinacridones. For a brief moment, I get a glimpse of my
inner capacity to generate color, as the phosphenic glow of my
own projected sunspot sits in harmony with the shared light of
the sunset, and, weirdly enough, I feel grounded.