Just looking and the gift of presence

JUST LOOKING

Just Looking stems from the rapture of attunement: the intimacy of gazing into the eyes of another, knowing that both of you are completely safe.

Some years ago, I emulated Marina Abramović’s The Artist Is Present in a performance. People were invited to sit opposite me for fifteen minutes in silence. Afterwards, they had the opportunity to paint on a large canvas, and I did the same. We discussed the experience and I discovered that there had been incredible perception on both sides.

This halo of intimacy was repeated with lovers. How wonderful to relish the sensations that coursed through us before touch or words.

I realise how much I long for presence and intimacy. And I’m not alone.

As a therapist, holding a safe space and being physically, emotionally and psychically present to another is a honed gift. It is not always comfortable, but it is always telling of something — even when the sitter cannot look back.

Recently, I had an experience with a shaman. If I’m losing you at this point, hold still. All I’m saying is that I have felt changed. He described extracting “intrusions”, and since then I have felt happier.

I have begun inviting people to sit with me again.

I wait to see what I see and feel what I feel.

These encounters are very personal, so I don’t divulge their details without consent. What emerges afterwards belongs partly to the encounter and partly to me. Of course there are my own projections, associations and fantasies in the work.

The unconscious is the pool I swim in.

I am not trying to diagnose the person sitting opposite me, nor to claim that what I perceive is some objective truth about them. I am interested in what becomes available when two people agree, for a short period of time, simply to be present to one another.

Then I make work from what remains.

The point is to give the gift of presence.

And to be curious.