I delivered some prints to be exhibited at the Little House Restaurant in Settle. Which led me to reflect on the role of the viewer.
The finished work requires a viewer. In fact the image demands to be seen as this is how it becomes alive.
This is when a new narrative is forged between the image and others viewing it. The relationship developed between the image and viewers depends on an interplay and resonance between the image the viewers and their memories, dreams and experiences.
The title of a piece may direct the viewer to make a specific relationship with it. I prefer the the relationship between the viewer and my work to be unmediated by titles, the ones I provide should be seen as my introduction of the image to the viewer.
Roland Barthes describes what he calls the punctum in pictures it is an unintentional point in a picture that captures a viewer and arrests the gaze that was not intended by the by the artist. The punctum is the tiny shock, a satori a moment of connection.
