When falling asleep, the twilight space is that which ushers us from the land of wake to the sea of dream. It usually passes by with swiftness, but occasionally we will get the chance to hang out there a little longer than usual. Do you know the place I'm describing?
It is in this space where mental images dance with fluidity and vividness and along its tendrils one can find strange and sublime* wonders.
And the very sublimity of it all comes from the fact that as one falls into the sea of dreams, it seems that something else takes the wheel. Something moves my dreamfeet on the dreamsidewalk in the dreamtown. And even if I do get a rare moment of lucidity in a dream, the control I have over a scene is so minuscule compared to the grandeur of the dream. I may choose to walk through a door or stop talking to someone, but I am still constantly amazed and surprised by what I see in the dream. Its as if any control in a dream is another illusion of the dream itself...
...And it makes the dreamer wonder if the waking world is any different. Are we ever in control? Who steers this ship? Is it more than just me in here?
My art is my attempt at exploring those same liminal spaces found in dreamworld and finding their parallels in waking life. In a sense, I want to find the twilight portal, that strange space between, where something else takes control.
"Cat doors to another dimension" 2019. ink and digital
*The sublime is comes from the latin sub- as in "under" or "up to" and -limen as in limit or threshold, so roughly meaning 'up to the threshold'. I like to think it means that when something is sublime it is as close to heaven as it can get while still being a part of this world. The dictionary would say that sublime means "of such excellence, grandeur, or beauty as to inspire great admiration or awe." and I like that, too.