Gregory Pryor

I noticed that people enjoyed looking at paintings of scenes. If a painting depicted a scene in a world view that was real or imaginary, then people would lean towards the work, rather than step back in their appraisal … [These paintings] had a power to draw people in to see more, and often, a whole new world unfolded inside these pictures.²

When you walk through PARIS, you receive visual, aural, and sensual STIMULUS of a MULTITUDE of FORMS and INTENSITIES. One doesn’t have to seek this, it JUST HAPPENS, rather simply. The mystery is: WHY CAN WE RECEIVE THIS CONFUSING INFORMATION SO EASILY, YET IN TRYING TO DOCUMENT OR DEPICT IT, WE ONLY FIND DIFFICULTY?³

On a recent trip to France, I looked deep into the murky green waters of the Seine and from inside the swirling currents, I could see many stories. There are stories about Alfred Nobel and the invention of dynamite. There are stories about the purity of bamboo and the stillness of Chinese landscape painting. There is the story of Marco Polo and the spires of Gothic cathedrals. Through all these stories we hear a dialogue between nature and culture, between East and West, and between the active and contemplative states of the human condition.⁴