Pareidolia

Pareidolia is the phenomena of perceiving some kind of pattern in an image when there really isn't one, leading to the image being interpreted in a certain way. I find it interesting how few visual triggers it takes for an image to read as figures. At first glance this could pass as just such a piece. However, there are plenty of pretty strong hints and suggestions in it. For example the 'figures' are all similar in shape (long with a bit of a head at the top), all are upright, stood on the ground. They appear to be in some sort of landscape, and there appears to be some degree of perspective, suggesting that they are all a similar size. This wasn't necessarily what I had originally intended, but at some point during it's painting it started to take on the appearance of figures. This often happens when I'm painting abstracts. Still, at least I haven't found Jesus in my toast yet.

The Greeting

Encaustic