William Perillat is a self taught artist who produces unique figurative wood sculptures based in Expressionistic style. His pieces date from 1980 to the present.
The fragments of reality we experience reside within the limits of our senses and imaginations. Many of these fragments, in their intrusion into our perception, barely nudge our consciousness. In the genesis of myth, this perception devoid of comprehension often gives rise to the monstrous visage – an image distorted by its reflection off whichever polished aegis affords us the glimpse.
This interpretation of the Greek myth casts the Gorgon as the personification of knowledge and perceptions that are barred from our comprehension due, at least in part, to physiological constraints of our neurology. True comprehension of the realities which lie behind the mask induces transmogrifications which petrify our humanness and leads to an entirely “other” existence.
From the myth, the goddess’ bronze/mirrored shield is represented by the bronze silhouette, and is the sliver of reflected reality that can be afforded to those who are brave enough to seek it. An expansive void of realities lies behind this, unknowable. The myth’s dynamic consequence (turning to stone) is represented by a petrified tree, which, having been exposed to eons beyond its birthright, leaves behind an image of the life force it once contained.
