Field Studies

By Laurence O’Toole – View Artist’s Profile

During the recent lockdown we all felt the effects of a different set of forces, those of the microscopic, the economic, the social and the governmental. There was something in the air that could harm but the world seen out the window looked normal and benign as usual. In this recent work I infer the presence of discrete lumps of matter with a set of plaster casts, borrowing formally from the world of field work, forensics and detection. These forms outline something invisible. It is this invisibility that suggests something sinister, not unlike an airborne virus. I also exploit the viewer’s innate perceptual biases, where the concave is more likely to be perceived as convex. This projects the form outward, occupying space without actually being there.