Pareidolia and John Stezaker

Over the past month or so, I have been looking at the beautiful collage work of John Stezaker as I prepare a talk for this fall's joint meeting of Nomadikon (a group of scholars from Norway) and the Center for Seeing (SUNY, Albany). My talk will be about pareidolia, the phenomenon that occurs when individuals see faces in inanimate objects (like clouds and wood-grain). I am hoping to tie-in this phenomenon with a discussion of specialized cells in the brain and with the work of a select group of collage artists. I was in my studio on Sunday night and was mostly cleaning and organizing to prepare to get back to creating artwork! I only did a couple "sketches" which included this piece. I had no preconceived intention of making a piece like this, but afterward realized that my recent exposure to Stezaker's work (I've been reading a bunch of stuff about him too) seems to have clearly influenced my "vision" in this case. This image is not quite the finished piece (I'll probably get to that tonight). But I'm excited about it and couldn't wait to post.