Thoughts on Paradox, Ambiguity and Uncertainty

Humanity has never enjoyed uncertainties, and although we say we like mystery, we don’t, really. We do not deal easily with ambiguity. Things are either black or white (though we can manage grey – as a colour), up or down, dark or light. However, with the advent of quantum physics and its paradoxes (cats that are both dead and alive, light that is both wave and particle), our set-in-stone certainties should be fading somewhat. The male or female certainties have been well and truly confused with the LBGTXYZ movement). The patriarchy is on its last legs, not before time.

It’s clear though that the old guard won’t die without a struggle. Their world has lasted several centuries, if not millennia, hasn’t it, so why should they change – their brains aren’t wired for ambiguity. What, in fact, is the difference between the two? Checking on the internet (as we do these days) really doesn’t help, so I’ll see if I can explain both, at least to myself. Ambiguity is lack of clarity – it’s not black or white!. I think (I hope) that my artwork is often ambiguous – difficult to be certain what it’s about.  Paradox is apparent contradiction, but isn’t really. So, paradoxically, we believe that death is the end of everything but it may be a step to a far better reality. I don’t know if that’s a particularly useful paradox but it works for me. This might be a better one: years ago I produced an artwork that was paradoxical – ‘This Side Up’ – a nice, compact comment on the perennial gender battle. (See above, on the left…)

As an example of ambiguity, let’s try this one, my painting called The Inheritors. It’s ambiguous because I don’t know who these people are, what their relationship is to each other, but most of all because I could never decide whether the hand of the hooded figure in the centre, resting on the head of a small person (child?) at the bottom, was protective or injurious. What was this small person doing? It looks to me as if she (or he) wanted to take her mask off; so was the hooded figure’s hand helping or preventing her doing so? And who are all the other figures? Well, if I don’t know, who does?