One might say that everything is an illusion, not illusory, but an illusion. It’s a bit like the thirsty camel rider crossing the desert. His mind, his survival instinct are consumed by his thirst, and he is ready to see what he wishes, what he desires, without even its existence.
The American photographic artist John Douglas takes us to a land at the borders of reality and unreality. Masses of rocks or asteroids suspended above a calm, flat sea, offshore oil wells, waves set ablaze by dusk, a setting sun lighting the sky and sea on fire. Everything is an illusion, and yet everything exists, hence this boundary between the real and the unreal. Beyond this optical illusion, of the mind and the soul, the photographer invites us to reflect, to question the spectacle unfolding before our eyes.
What seems to be, is it? The eternal question of being or not being. The artist poses a single question: Are you sure you have seen correctly? Modern man, flooded with images and information, forgets the most important thing: the essence of his existence, the end of this play unfolding before him. He gets lost in details and triviality.
The question echoes: have you seen correctly? These photos, digital compositions, are a tribute to beauty, to a panorama, to the work of nature. The photographer is there at the right moment, he captures the image and freezes it. The result is a fairytale of photos, of magnificent views. The fleeting moment is frozen for eternity, and the photographer, John Douglas, gives us a wonderful gift. The earth is very beautiful, and this exhibition is also a message of hope, a poem to beauty, a dreamlike exercise.
Have you seen correctly? Yes, one could say: yes, we have seen the magnificence of our planet, of the earth, and we have dreamed, hoping it could come true, but for that, we would need to change mentalities, bring people back to the essential, but have they seen correctly? By plagiarizing Ecclesiastes and its vanities, we would say that all is illusion, and John Douglas would have, during this exhibition, taken us to his planet where dreams and poetry are the code and the law.
An exhibition of photos and a journey to the land of dreams where anything is possible since it is an illusion.
Thierry Jan
