Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon where the human mind perceives meaningful shapes like faces of human characteristics in random, vague data. Like the very title suggests, these pieces comprise some of the initial experiments undertaken as a part of my undergraduate research on Pareidolic ambiguity in visual art mostly focusing on facial features.

Later, during the lockdown induced by the pandemic, I tried making handmade papers by recycling the newspapers at home. Created a piece essentially based on this tendency titled, ‘Pareidolic Persona’. Here I attempted to recreate my experiences of ‘seeing’ faces of peculiar characters on the stony wall texture of my bathroom tiles, using the paper pulp. The faces hint the nature of possibilities while experiencing this phenomenon.

In this work, I intend to create a personality of a pareidolic person, who keeps spotting facial features at random places. The head is composed of many such ‘faces’ or ‘patterns’, which emerge and dissolve with every perception viewer. The forms pasted in the background symbolize some of many instances where I keep ‘seeing’ faces/human characteristics. The forms also hint the viewer to deduce meaningful shapes out of their randomness. I intend to emphasize the seemingly vague character of natural patterns, in this case, the stony surface of the horizontal-plan view of the human brain. As a part of my dissertation, this work plays an important role in highlighting the pareidolic tendency. This is the final piece out of the whole process. More glimpses from the research can found on the web address mentioned below. 

Pareidolic Persona

Bleach on Brown tinted paper 
This work contextualizes the simultaneous happening/occurrences/processes of thinking, feeling a thought, an idea and memories. This is a fantasized projection of a being observantly experiencing its subconsciousness. The butterfly form at the top consists of an as the torso, and the two ears as wings. This form is a symbol, I use for ‘awareness’, exploring the whereabouts of the subconscious spaces, shapes, motifs registered in the mind. The many-faced head symbolizes the many-sided personality of an individual. Generally, we tend to behave differently with different people, instances in our life. The budding leaves from its shoulders are the ideas.
The bleach in a way, excavated the hidden feelings, subconscious imagery from the paper.

A Memory>A Thought>A Feeling>An Idea

This work is the projection of the chaotic nature of thoughts in the human mind. Here, I explore the various ‘tendencies’ of thoughts, their characteristics, their peculiar identities assigned to the concepts or experiences, through the medium of fabric. Some places are hand-embroidered while at some, pieces of fabric are pasted creating a vibrant collage, with randomness in the abstract/semi-abstract composition. Here subconsciously I have used my instinctual Pareidolic tendency of creating face-like shapes out of random patterns. The many-faced head hints towards a many-sided persona with a play of random ‘thought-fabrics’ inside the head. The mirror in the hand of the being suggests introspection.

Thought Variables

Mixed Media and Collage on Paper
One of my interests has been discovering the chaotic nature of human thought and clarity achieved through awareness i.e., chaos and order. This work has been inspired by the chaotic nature of thoughts and my motive was to create a pareidolic composition. Pareidolia is a psychological phenomenon where the human mind perceives meaningful shapes like faces of human characteristics in random, vague data. It is an experiment done on a 'chance' basis. I went on evolving my strokes as per my painting's 'whispers'.
I used varied faces on the face of the woman, to denote the flashes of feelings at every sip of the 'strong' tea! 
There were newspapers with me. All of a sudden I was intrigued by the very peculiar relation they sought with my thoughts at that moment. And then, I went with the flow. Enjoyed the process!

Add

Akshata Prabhu

Opportunities

For Artists

ArtConnect

Support