When Faces Appear… And Vanish

Recently, while working on a new abstract painting, I had one of those unsettling moments artists sometimes talk about—but rarely expect to experience themselves.

As I built up the layers—scraping back, adding washes, letting colours mingle—shapes began to emerge. At first it was just a suggestion: a shadow here, a curve there. Then I realised I was staring at what looked uncannily like faces. Not painted deliberately, not even consciously formed, but appearing as if they had always been hiding in the paint, waiting for me to notice.

The next morning, I came back to the studio curious to study them again… and they were gone. Not even a ghost of a jawline. Perhaps it was the light the day before. Perhaps my mind had been in that half-dream state that invites imagination to take over. Whatever the cause, the change was so complete it left me a little unnerved.

Later, I learned this is a recognised phenomenon—much like seeing shapes in clouds, tree bark, or even rock formations. Psychologists call it pareidolia: the brain’s natural tendency to seek familiar patterns, especially faces, in random arrangements. In art, it can feel almost magical—like the painting has its own secret life, revealing and concealing as it pleases.

Whether the faces were ever truly there or not, the experience reminded me that painting is as much about perception as creation. Sometimes what we “see” is a collaboration between brush, surface, and mind. And sometimes, that collaboration is fleeting.