Paranoia Critical

Have you ever looked at the clouds and saw a puppy or a sailboat?

Allowing the unconscious to project its images onto paper or canvas is a Surrealist practice known as the Paranoiac Critical method.

I began by encouraging the artists to discover images in small pieces of paper that were randomly splattered with black ink. Later the students participated in another Surrealist activity, Poem of Opposites, in which they collectively created odd and often humorous poetic sentences.

In the end the artists looked for images in inkblots created on folded paper. The bi-laterally symmetrical blots quite often stimulated visions of odd characters and animal-like creatures. The result was a collection of fresh spontaneous drawings of characters of the imagination.  

Back to Projects