The pay off - Rewarding exploration

We've all had them, those "ah-ha" moments of realisation, the slight smile and nasal exhale as the joke lands, the duality of frustration and celebration found in solving puzzles. In that moment when things click together we find satisfaction, a reward for all the work, the splinters and bruises from errant flatpack accidents fade away in the face of the completed item.

We will even seek this out in our free time as we adjust the difficulty sliders in our games to give us the feeling we wish from their completion.

What's more this feeling stays with us, we return to where we found it as often as we seek out new forms of it. It's been decades since i first saw the Treachery of Images by Margritte, yet it still think of it often and enjoy the sense of sliding its concepts around in my head, clicking them together, unclicking and rearranging them to click again.

Whilst im not advocating for all art to somehow present a puzzle for the viewer to solve, or hide puns in amongst the paint, there is a lot to be gained in thinking of the viewers journey through a piece, and how that journey ends. There's a lot to be gained -for both viewer and artist- from creating work that gives people reason or desire to return to it, whether that be through conceptual contemplation, or physical observation.

So walk around your work, experience it from other angles, see where it takes you, so you know where you can take others.

(Nicola Yeoman - Alphabetical - Perspective based sculpture from discarded objects)