Original artwork description:

A Happy Thought - REM Abstract In Ink 11x14 on paper

This painting is created using REM intrusion hallucinations which I have because of my condition Narcolepsy. Essentially I dream while awake because my brain is in REM position when it shouldn’t be.
This condition was found when my brain was scanned over a two day period at Guys Hospital. Though this has repercussions and limitation for my life eg. I am not allowed to drive be a witness or a jury member. It is on the other hand jet fuel to my creativity and allows me to create continuously.

This painting is a dream. Not a dream remembered like Dali but a dream in progress.
As described by Renowned neurologist and author Oliver Sachs in book “Hallucinations”
These appear as faces and figures from cartoon characters to disturbing distortions monsters to classical beautiful forms.

These faces and figures layer and change. This is why dreams are often remembered as incredibly odd stories not because they were but because your memory remembers only certain layers and on awakening cannot make sense of the dream. While the dream happens it is much more a gradual and natural morphing of images. Narcolepsy with all its hindrance’s allows me to see this conscious eyes open or closed and I paint them as if tracing an image because they appear on the canvas.
There is though technique choices I make to balance the artworks colours and composition and I do that instinctively as I paint.

These rem intrusion paintings are collectors works. Please bear in mind for loan requests for a future exhibition. Exhibitions raise a value of an artwork over time so apart from the artistic desire to show these there is a financial incentive for the collector.

Materials used:

Oil Ink On Paper

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