Project 2
Perspective
(Acrylic Paintings)

What is perspective?

By definition perspective is, a technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface; the state of one’s ideas, the facts know to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship.

Are all people’s perspectives of the same known fact the same?

I really analyzed these questions as I approached my second project.  This idea of perspective really parallels the idea of blackbox, taking something know, experimenting with it, and then getting some sort of output.  The thing that I noticed over and over again with the idea of perspective is that although many people may be given the same known fact, that their perspective or take on that fact could be drastically different.
         Then I finally came up with the idea to take a know fact, a line drawn on a canvas.  Nobody could say that the line did not exist because everyone could see it.  It was there, a fact.  From that line I would paint in acrylic whatever that know fact made me think of…my PERSPECTIVE!
         In working on my project I decided on three different lines placed on three different canvases.  From the first line I envisioned a pair of lips protruding from the side of the canvas.  From the second line, I envisioned a tall high heel placed in the center of the page.  Then, from the last line I envisioned a midnight sky full of swirling clouds, with glowing stars.  All of these images were so vivid to me as I began painting.  Would someone else see the same thing from one simple given fact?
         To experiment, I gave my class plain sheets of paper with one of the line drawn on it from my three paintings, in the same spot that it was placed on my canvas.  From this I asked them to draw whatever they saw.  Take this simple known fact and create their own relationship through a perspective drawing.
         I honestly thought that there might be one or two people that saw what I saw; that had the same perspective. To my surprise everyone’s pictures were completely different from each other and from mine.
         Perspective is so very important to the idea of blackbox.  Without perspective we lose innovation, creativity, experimentation, and technology.  Without perspective we are bound to a closed blackbox…but through perspective we are able to explore the possibilities of the unknown.