Artificial bodies in an artificial reality.
Sunflowers growing in the cracks of a sidewalk reveal themselves to be gears on wire stems, implanted within a chessboard that breaks off in the distance. A line of pawn-shaped crowd control ropes appears to protect the gears from falling off the edge of the cliff, but serves to restrict their growth and visibility beyond what they currently know. Both the viewer and the gears are initially deceived, but only the viewer can see over the heads of the gears and know that the game prevents them from thought and imagination, the ability to consider alternate possibilities or simply dwell in the idea of nothing.
30x30", oil on canvas