We live in a world in which we are often encouraged to think in terms of opposites. Stillness or movement. Rest or activity. Being or doing. We are invited, sometimes quite unconsciously, to choose one over the other, as though they were opposing forces, each competing for its place in our lives.
But what if we were to look at these apparent opposites differently? What if stillness and movement were not in opposition, but two interrelated aspects of a greater whole?
When we observe the natural world, we begin to see that stillness and movement are rarely as separate as they might first appear. Beneath the apparent stillness of a landscape, countless processes are unfolding. A tree stands quietly, yet sap rises, leaves turn towards the light, and roots extend into the earth. Even in the stillness of a moment, life is moving. And within movement, there can be a profound stillness.
Perhaps the distinction lies not in whether something is moving or still, but in the quality of our presence within it.
Stillness offers us an opportunity to pause, to listen, and to become receptive to what might otherwise go unnoticed. It creates space for our experiences to settle, for our perceptions to deepen, and for something new to emerge. Without such moments, we can become caught in a succession of reactions, constantly moving from one thing to another without allowing ourselves to fully encounter what is happening.
Yet stillness, too, has its limitations when separated from movement. Reflection can become withdrawal; contemplation can become a way of postponing the very encounters that might bring greater understanding. We can remain in the realm of possibility without ever allowing our insights to find expression in the world.
Movement, on the other hand, brings us into participation. Through movement we explore, create, respond, and discover. We give form to what has been quietly taking shape within us. Sometimes it is only by taking a step into the unknown that we discover what we could never have understood through reflection alone.
And yet movement without stillness can become restless activity. We may be doing a great deal without knowing what truly matters to us. When every pause is filled and every moment demands our attention, we risk losing contact with the deeper currents that might otherwise guide our actions.
The question, then, is not which of these qualities we should cultivate, but how we recognize what is called for in any given moment. There are times when we need to step back, to listen more deeply, and to allow understanding to emerge. At other times, we need to move forward, to take a risk, or to engage with something we have been avoiding. And there are moments when stillness and movement seem to coexist: when we act without losing our centre, or remain inwardly quiet while fully participating in life.
I find myself returning to this relationship in my art. The interplay of stillness and movement is not simply a matter of what is visible in an image, but something that can be sensed in the space between them. A figure may appear suspended in a moment, yet there is a sense of movement continuing beyond what we can see. An abstract form may suggest an opening, an emergence, or a passage into something not yet known. What appears still is not necessarily static, and what moves does not necessarily disturb the stillness from which it arises.
Perhaps this is also true of our own lives. We are continually being shaped through our encounters with one another and with the world around us. There is a rhythm of receiving and responding, listening and expressing, allowing and participating. Neither is sufficient in isolation. Each gives meaning and possibility to the other.
I wonder what might change if, rather than seeing stillness and movement as opposing forces, we began to experience them as a living polarity - distinct, yet deeply interconnected. Instead of striving to find a fixed balance between them, perhaps we might become more attentive to their changing relationship, allowing each to come forward when the moment calls for it.
Might this be one way of becoming more present to life? Not by choosing between stillness and movement, but by allowing both to inform how we meet each moment: receptive enough to listen, and responsive enough to act.
And perhaps, in that meeting, something else becomes possible: a way of being in which stillness does not mean withdrawal, movement does not mean restlessness, and both become expressions of a more deeply integrated presence.
This artwork is titled Inter-being.
The title has been with me for some time, but recently I have been returning to it with new eyes.
Thich Nhat Hanh coined the term inter-being and I came across a passage by him in which he speaks of the biologist Lewis Thomas and his observation that our human bodies are “shared, rented, and occupied” by countless other organisms. Our bodies, he suggests, are not solitary entities at all, but communities of life. Without these countless others, we could not move, think, feel or even be here.
I was struck by how beautifully this connects with something I have been pondering in my own work: relationality and porosity.
We tend to think of ourselves as separate beings, each contained within the boundary of an individual body. Yet the more closely we look, the more difficult that boundary becomes to sustain. We breathe the world into ourselves. We exchange matter with it. We are inhabited by other forms of life. We are shaped by the people we encounter, the places we inhabit, the histories we carry and the relationships through which we become who we are.
Perhaps, then, inter-being is more than being connected to one another.
Connection can suggest that there are separate things which then enter into relationship. Inter-being suggests something deeper: that relationship is already part of what we are.
The two figures in my artwork appear to be joined by various markings passing across them. The small hyphen in the title is intentional. It becomes a kind of bridge between inter and being, between one and another, between self and other, between what appears separate and what may never have been separate at all.
This makes me think again about Presence.
Perhaps Presence is not something that belongs to an individual. Perhaps it arises within the space between us, through us, and beyond us. Perhaps what we call a being is, in fact, a temporary gathering of relationships - a meeting place where countless forms of life and experience come together.
There are, as Lewis Thomas suggested, no solitary beings.
And perhaps the artwork is simply an invitation to pause with that thought:
What if we are not separate beings who occasionally connect?
What if we are, from the beginning, inter-beings?
Updated: Aug 8
We often assume that what we see is all that exists. The works in my new series begin from a different premise: that every living presence radiates beyond its physical boundaries.
Presence is not confined to the visible body. It is a field of meaning and relevance created between a person and their environment and it extends into space through memory, emotion, movement and relationship.
Presence is not an object but a field. Like an atmosphere, it can fill a room and influence anyone who enters it.
The works in my new series “Fields of Presence” have glitches moving over figures.
More works in this series can be viewed on my Instagram.
The moving field in each work is not simply an effect imposed by me upon the subject but an invitation to perceive what usually remains unseen.
The visible subjects are stable, while the invisible fields reman in constant motion.
The pulsation in each work represents frequencies, emotions, memories or histories, fields we cannot ordinarily perceive, vibrating through and beyond the subject, and the artwork thus becomes a resonating body.
The moving fields are not only emanations of the figures they surround but signs of participation in a larger reality. Presence is never entirely our own. We are continuously shaped by the atmospheres we inhabit, the relationships that sustain us, the histories we inherit, and the countless visible and invisible forces through which life unfolds. The figures in these works do not stand apart from their fields. They arise within them. The moving forms suggest an ongoing exchange between self and world, where identity is less a fixed boundary than a living conversation.
The undulating glitches represent a threshold between matter and energy, the seen and the unseen, body and atmosphere, presence and absence, stillness and movement.
The works in this series imagine what it might look like if invisible currents, emotional atmospheres, memories attached to places and the subtle exchanges between bodies and environment briefly cross the threshold into visibility.
The subject appears to remain still, the field moves, and the subject exists in both states simultaneously.
Perhaps the real subject in each work is not the person in the image but presence itself. The figure is simply the place where presence becomes visible.
This invites a meditation on being.
My art is not the capture of a single frozen moment from one viewpoint. It invites an immersive atmosphere. It is my wish that its presence overlaps with the presence of the viewer.
Each video is not merely an animation but a perceptual study. The works are studies of presence itself.
Viewers often interpret digital distortion as an error. I am suggesting that my work is quietly reversing that assumption. In other words, perhaps we are not watching an artwork break down. The movement is not evidence that something is broken. It is evidence that something more is present than that which we usually perceive.
The glitch does not destroy the underlying image. It illuminates it, suggesting the slow, natural awakening of consciousness. Viewers are encouraged into a state of present-moment awareness, where they look through the screen into the deeper field of presence.
The viewer’s eye is encouraged to work in layers. The viewer must look through the movement to see the underlying form. This encourages a transparency of consciousness.
Much of my art uses transparency. My gauze like see through prayer shawls and my use of overlapping digital elements invite the viewer to “look through” the artwork to experience the living presence of the field, rather than just staring at a flat surface.
The pulsating wireframe glitch effect thus explores the idea that living presence extends beyond physical boundaries, turning digital distortion into a contemplative aesthetic.
The glitch in each video creates waves and shifts that evoke mystery and invite inquiry.
Perhaps we are watching perception opening up as the glitch effect becomes a language for the invisible. The glitch becomes a revelation.
The resulting video artworks are thus “revealings” rather than animations.
They suggest that the movement uncovers something latent within the image rather than adding something external to it.
Each artwork in this series continues to reverberate after the moment of its creation and in a sense Time itself becomes visible.
The series gathers together many of the themes of my work such as walking between worlds, movement within stillness, stillness within movement, the visible and the invisible, physical and digital, presence extending beyond the body, and art as an invitation to deeper perception.
The technology I am using in this series is not the focus but is serving a deeper inquiry.
This series is not about digital art. It’s not about glitches. It isn’t about software. It is about perception and presence.
The series is a perceptual journey inviting the viewers to move beyond a purely visual reality and become aware of what lies beneath the surface.