Psychological State Map for Photodynamic Art Generator (2022)

Gouache, charcoal and oil pastel on paper, 11 ft x 6 ft

Photo Credit: Empty Cup Media

This drawing is an evolving image that undergoes several feedback loops to facilitate a conversation between mathematical pattern making with parameters with the intuitive process of embodied creation that lives in the process of making a gesture drawing. The drawing starts with painting an abstract space on the expression of the emotional brain, then the pattern to structure the work comes from parameters that influence a set of psychological states. These parameters come from Kurt Lewin Field Force-Field Theory and they are converted into two extremes (binary numbers) that are then spatialized into a landscape. An example of a parameter is self worth being inferior, the left side of the image or superior the right side of the image. This creates a pattern of borders to start a conversation with freedom of expression to create gesture drawings and text phrases that live in the regions contained by the intersection of its borders to illustrate a “map” of a complex psychological system. Then, returning to structured rules, the regions are identified with words and placed in a spectrum showing the diversity in how these parameters can intermingle into a space that is navigated. Then, in a process of reflecting on what emerges, the meaning of the work is drawn to conclude the conversation. The factors involved in forming psychological states influence human perception and how we choose to have agency over our lives in social situations in whether we choose to hinder our capacity to fulfill our needs or help provide our emotional needs for ourselves.