The Listening Room
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Oil on canvas
1270 × 1000 mm
Completed 2025
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This painting began as an exploration of music, not as sound, but as feeling. I imagined a space where someone could completely surrender to their favourite record: a room for listening, total immersion (continue reading)
A Uniquely Human Trait?
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Oil on canvas
24 × 24 inches
61 × 61cm
Completed 2025
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Think about this, the hard problem of consciousness relates to how and why subjective experience arises from physical processes in the brain.
Gorillas are one of our closest evolutionary relatives, which raises the first question of this painting. Is consciousness a uniquely human trait? Or is it something that exists elsewhere? Perhaps even on a spectrum?
The headphones add a layer, is the gorilla experiencing music? We know the gorilla can hear, but can it be having a subjective experience akin to our own? If it does react, is it feeling something, or is it just responding?
Of, if the gorilla is enjoying the music it is haring, is it conscious in the same way we consider ourselves to be?
Headphones isolate sound, the music the gorilla is hearing is inaccessible to others. This relates to the crossover between neuroscience and philosophy, It’s known as the explanatory gap, meaning we can observe the brains states, but not the qualia (the subjective experience) behind them.
We can see the this here gorilla, we can know its brain lights up. But we can’t feel what it’s like to be the gorilla any more than I can feel what it’s like to be you.
The Difference?
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Oil on canvas
1219 × 615 mm
48 × 24 inches
Completed 2025
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Is consciousness uniquely human.
Could it exist beyond us, perhaps along a spectrum?
Is the gorilla truly experiencing the music?
Can it have a subjective experience like ours?
When it reacts, is it feeling something or merely responding?
If the gorilla finds joy in the music, does that mean its consciousness mirrors our own?
The gorilla needs a little time out too
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Oil on canvas
30 × 40cm
Completed 2025
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Sometimes you don’t want to think too much, sometimes you don’t want to wreck your brain working on something that will take months to finish, sometimes you don’t want to get too close to the details.
Sometimes you just want to put some music on and paint something for fun…
Sometimes the gorilla needs a little time out too