Genevieve Sheumack

My painting 'Omnioptic' interrogates the power and anxiety embedded in acts of seeing. Constructed from fragments of unstretched canvas reassembled into a collage-like surface, the work destabilises the unified picture plane to evoke fragmentation, multiplicity, and instability. Influenced by Surrealist artists such as René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, and Victor Brauner, as well as contemporary practitioners Sarah Contos and Lauren Burrow, the piece extends a lineage of ocular iconography that explores the unconscious, estrangement, and control. By overwhelming the viewer with watchful eyes, some naturalistic, others distorted, it mirrors the hyper-visibility of 21st-century life shaped by digital surveillance and social media. Echoing the Surrealists’ response to the turbulence of their time, 'Omnioptic' visualises collective unease in an era of political polarisation and constant observation, transforming the act of looking into a site of discomfort, resistance, and reflection on contemporary modes of perception.