University Art Gallery

Ways of Seeing

• Dean Gosling - Artist Statement
• Pia Larsen - Artist Statement

'It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.' John Berger, 1977

Dean Gosling and Pia Larsen are both interested in disrupting a particular discourse and in doing so revealing another ‘way of seeing’. The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe, through social, visual and linguistic codes that are learnt from infancy, which enable a shared understanding of “meanings” within a particular culture.

Gosling’s works are texts in Braille and unless the viewer understands this code, they won’t be able to read their very literal meanings. The sighted person is encouraged to see through another sense, that being touch, which can be experienced like a static, limited form of sight. The irony in this work is that the Braille code is constructed with plastic eyes, blinded by paint and yet provided the very code of meaning as their raised surface can be read through touch.

Larsen is interested in the language of images and who uses that language and for what purpose. She draws upon the rich history of the depiction of the human body within western art that has been used to define gender. She dissects and isolates body parts in a random order, so that muscles or external and internal organs are not initially recognizable as belonging to a particular gender.

Both artists remind us that we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves, and notably through our bodies and its sensory perceptions.

All images have been reproduced courtesy of the artist.