Sight Unseen Olive/Powder I

Sight Unseen Olive/Powder I
Andrea Mulder-Slater
acrylic on canvas
10 1/2" x 12 1/2" x 2" (framed)

When I make a painting, I am either looking at something (a landscape, a coffee cup, a house…) or - in the case of my abstracts - I am thinking about a place (the ocean, the forest, the city…).

However, the inspiration for the Sight Unseen series came from a very different place.

On a winter morning, I woke up to a cascade of images in my mind. I could clearly see row upon row of paintings unlike any I had seen, or painted before.

I opened my eyes and at once, the images were gone. I pressed my eyes closed and to my delight, they were still there.

I spent the next few minutes blinking while drawing what I was seeing on a piece of paper, making notes about the colours and shapes.

Then, the images disappeared, and I got up.

Later, I did a some research and found out that the state I was in when I saw the images is called hypnopompia.

HYPNO POM PIA. Pretty catchy right?

So was I hallucinating (a friend asked me)? Maybe. Visual hallucinations during the period between sleep and awakening are pretty common.

Then again, I do suffer from lattice degeneration, which basically means my eyes are broken. So maybe what I saw was a symptom of this rare affliction.

Either way, I knew I had to paint what I saw. So, I did. And in this way, the Sight Unseen series was born. And more are on the way.

~Andrea