Again, it’s like alien landscapes, not dissimilar from getting to know another human intimately. I’ve said in the past that every human is like a painting, with an optimal viewing distance and lighting. Love and intimacy are a bit different though. You have to get all distances and angles and lighting. When you have done so and are enthralled with all of it, even the scary parts, you can say that you love that person.

Even the scary bits and previously unfamiliar, alien bits.

I first started thinking about scale when I was reading Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. The more popular segment of the novel is Gulliver’s time among the tiny Lilliputians, but it was his description of the grotesque giants in Brobdingnag that stuck with me. Years later I experienced the hyper-realist sculptures of RON MUECK at a Charlies Saatchi exhibition here in Brooklyn and the impact of scale came to life in 3-dimenions. The very same image, taken out of proportion from the context that our minds are calibrated to has a visceral impact. It’s cognitive dissonance but felt on a physical level also. Elements in some of the flowers, which were otherwise delicate, come on as aggressive, or even creepy and sinister. It’s an effect very much like Ron Mueck’s sculptures of humans, and very much like humans themselves.