Visual Distortion

Year Completed: 2022

This piece is based around the visual distortions that come with Irlen syndrome, a cognitive and visual processing syndrome. I’m trying to convey how lights and colors move around my vision and distort the way I view the world, and that this in turn makes my eyes fatigued. The main piece is a large piece of etched brass that has been patinaed black and bent into a blindfold, with wax encaustic covering the back to give the eyes splotchy color. The color choices of green and pink/purple wax coming through with the lights creates an exaggeration of what my vision might feel like to someone else. I experimented a lot with different colored patinas and testing how wax encaustic would work on a curved vs non curved metal, also playing with the paper and wax filling the cut outs in the metal. Metal being such a versatile medium to work with let me experiment with lots of looks for this piece to eventually convey what I want it too.