"I used only sepia tones to make these paintings in order to emphasize the stark contrasts that are revealed when we distinguish between what is actually happening and our assorted personal and collective constructed realities. The expression “consensus reality” is beginning to be bandied about by media types and other social commentators to describe the collective version of this phenomenon. Often, buying into a particular consensus reality is a prerequisite for acceptance into a social or political group with which one wishes to be identified. We reflexively deny validity to the other group’s perspective, while we self-censure to avoid confronting weaknesses in our own. To critique the truth claims of our own peer group is seditious and likely to invite banishment. On an individual level, we may dissociate from qualities that we deny are ours, then project this shadow material onto others and condemn them. Or we may block out new revelations and insights by stubbornly and habitually clinging to unproductive attachments and beliefs. We do these things grounded in certainty that our justifications are unimpeachable; that all that is delivered to the tabula rasa of our awareness is unmediated, objective truth; that the solution to my conflict with you is for you to privilege my perspective over your own; and that “group-think” is a virtue.



Ultimately, this is not a message of doom and gloom or pessimism. Rather, it is a dialogue about courage, engagement and awareness. Awareness not only of what is happening in the world outside of ourselves, but awareness of how the mechanisms and structures within us shape how we interpret and relate to the world and to each other."