"Close Your Eyes & Listen"
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16"x20"
Graphite pencil and charcoal, 2019
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Do you remember holding a seashell up to your ear to hear the ocean waves crashing inside? As adults, we know there weren’t any waves rolling around in there. As a child however, we believed in the illusion that if you listened hard enough, you could hear the impossible.
If you took that same seashell and cut it in half, ran tests on it, and performed x-rays, that magical illusion is broken. There is no ocean inside the shell. As we grow up, we seem determined to destroy these incredible beliefs we held onto as a child, instead breaking it down into facts and data. In doing so, we begin to lose our sense of wonderment of the world.
In nature, the inside of these shells were never meant to be seen; their secrets always hidden away in the turns and curves. Does the knowledge of it’s inner workings outweigh the uncomplicated wonder that can be discovered in the impossible? Or is it possible to still bring back some of that simple amazement even after learning the facts?
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This piece was awarded the Lloyd Minshall Award at Central Ontario Art Association's Annual Juried Exhibition 'Crossections'.
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Original $850.00