Qualia's Cave

Qualia’s Cave. A semi-abstract painting of a cave with stalactites and stalagmites guarding its interior (like teeth around its mouth). Organic forms twist and blossom in the cave. Some parts of the painting are highly finished and other parts are loose, suggesting how we only see a small fraction of the world in detail.

This is an inversion of Plato’s Cave. Plato imagines people only experiencing shadows cast by a greater reality outside the cave. This artwork imagines the qualia arising inside the cave as the ultimate reality: as all there is. Inspired by my novella “Yesterday Makers”.

Qualia are conscious experiences (qualities), such as the blueness of the colour blue. As you stare at the picture, faces, figures, and monsters appear.