Watching

I look back over my own drawings, a random selection from the last decade, unearthed from my battered portfolio that is nearly twenty years old. I've never noticed before, but so many of the pieces show people looking out of a window, or a door, caught up in whatever landscape is around them. I wonder why this image appeals to me so much, this fascination with the act of watching, the ritual of witnessing. These characters are often faceless - we view them from behind, their faces hidden - reflected - in what they observe. Patterns emerge that are only noticed after the fact - I had really not, well, observed this recurrent theme before. I wonder what I'm looking for in these pictures, of people turned away, wonder what these people in the pictures are looking for. I wonder if there's anyone who might be watching me, who in turn themselves is being watched, and the thought of this sudden infinite regression suddenly and pleasingly unnerves me.