TRUE AS APPLIED TO YOU, FALSE AS APPLIED TO YOU
For this exhibition, Ivan Seal selected ten paintings from his studio and sent them to six people working in the field of psychology, psychotherapy and Gestalt therapy with instructions to respond with a sentence, word or set of words.
The reactions were used by the artist as stimulus for a new set of eleven paintings, starting a game of free association and open interpretation.
The premise for Ivan Seal’s practice is often a word, sentence, or an associative game. Paintings frequently begin with a spoken word. Another piece presented in the exhibition entitled Inventory also involved the reading of a text. Narrated by the artist, one of the most frequently used personality tests, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 in which participants have to answer, “true as applied to you or false as applied to you” played continuously in the gallery space, acting as points of reference, stimulation or association in conjunction with the paintings. Seal read each question with a hypnotic and emotionless voice, a matter-of-fact tone that lead to ad absurdum. The unsaid responses to his questions set the scene for the most intimate of personal responses.