Digital. Created in MS Paint 2007 with samples from Photoshop of the same period, 1216 pixels x 876 pixels.

Shaun : "In this post-December 2019 UK election image, the figure attempts to represent the UK in shape, the faces looking to the west, while Southern Ireland looks east and Scotland is unrepresented.

I started creating images in MS Paint on my computer in about 2003, initially as an effective and inexpensive way to generate visual content for classes I was then teaching ... I continued creating images in this medium over the years, but then had the opportunity to briefly try the more advanced PhotoShop software in about 2009 ... some elements of it spoke to me and I used it for a few images. Even though I never used it again thereafter, I instinctively kept on returning to segments of images in which it had been used. I transferred these into MS Paint and used and manipulated them over and over. I resized, squashed and elongated them, just like a blacksmith shaping metal, as if I were digitally recycling a limited quantity of scraps, shreds and samples of an image and using them to fashion new ones ... Many of my images thus act as blueprints for future endeavours by myself, be they on canvas, aluminium, paper, glass, etc.

The idea of continuity and the interconnectedness of everything is a theme I try to explore in many images ... what is viewed thru a microscope becomes what you see through a telescope and vice versa. An all-seeing eye sees the smallest sub atomic structures as if staring at the largest gas clouds in the universe, since similar patterns are repeated. This becomes very obvious when working at the level of magnified pixels ... I try and include parts of previous images in all my pictures. When this is not achieved, I place a moon, planet, asteroid, black hole, sun or meteorite to give perspective to a piece, placing the action squarely where it is occurring, somewhere spinning in the universe. Although I did not intentionally set out to do this, the process by which I create images evolved this way : Staring at pictures I had created, I would see patterns for another image within them or act upon the suggestions made by another viewer about what they could see."

Digital. Created in MS Paint 2007 with samples from Photoshop of the same period, 1216 pixels x 876 pixels.

Shaun : "In this post-December 2019 UK election image, the figure attempts to represent the UK in shape, the faces looking to the west, while Southern Ireland looks east and Scotland is unrepresented.

I started creating images in MS Paint on my computer in about 2003, initially as an effective and inexpensive way to generate visual content for classes I was then teaching ... I continued creating images in this medium over the years, but then had the opportunity to briefly try the more advanced PhotoShop software in about 2009 ... some elements of it spoke to me and I used it for a few images. Even though I never used it again thereafter, I instinctively kept on returning to segments of images in which it had been used. I transferred these into MS Paint and used and manipulated them over and over. I resized, squashed and elongated them, just like a blacksmith shaping metal, as if I were digitally recycling a limited quantity of scraps, shreds and samples of an image and using them to fashion new ones ... Many of my images thus act as blueprints for future endeavours by myself, be they on canvas, aluminium, paper, glass, etc.

The idea of continuity and the interconnectedness of everything is a theme I try to explore in many images ... what is viewed thru a microscope becomes what you see through a telescope and vice versa. An all-seeing eye sees the smallest sub atomic structures as if staring at the largest gas clouds in the universe, since similar patterns are repeated. This becomes very obvious when working at the level of magnified pixels ... I try and include parts of previous images in all my pictures. When this is not achieved, I place a moon, planet, asteroid, black hole, sun or meteorite to give perspective to a piece, placing the action squarely where it is occurring, somewhere spinning in the universe. Although I did not intentionally set out to do this, the process by which I create images evolved this way : Staring at pictures I had created, I would see patterns for another image within them or act upon the suggestions made by another viewer about what they could see."