Steven Dec

My work is grounded in what I call experiential metaphysics — an approach to art-making that treats aesthetic experience as a means of disclosing the deep structure of reality. I refer not to altered states, but to the subtle, perceptual and intuitive processes through which art and aesthetic experience discloses the patterns of reality. Drawing from my background in psychology and philosophy — particularly the idealist tradition of thinkers exemplified by Schopenhauer and Plotinus — I explore how the symbolic, perceptual, and intuitive dimensions of art serve not just as expression, but as epistemology. Rather than adopting a dualistic or mystical stance, my practice seeks to reveal how consciousness and world are co-constituted — how, through acts of artistic attention, we encounter – much less align — the resonance between inner life and outer form.

Self-taught painter. B.Sc. (hons.) Psychology, Aston University; PhD Psychology, University of Hertfordshire; MA Philosophy studies, Birkbeck University of London

[Exhibition Catalogue Template for Steven DeC (For use with permission ©2024]

With gratitude and thanks to the California Institute of Integral Studies, Mind Research Network, Bromley Mindfulness, Kairos Community Trust and the John Latham Archive, Flat Time House, Peckham, London.