Occasionally – as we wake, for a few brief seconds our conscious minds flail like fragile and newly hatched birds, desperate to claw our way free of some viscous membrane. Pressing through the sticky threads of sleep that cling to us, our sense of self blinks into being; clutching at our surroundings as we struggle to emerge from the warm and alluring confusion of blissful sleep. In those fleeting beats before the world settles and the extremities of our bodies assert their presence, the wisps of our dreams withdraw like slippery tendrils retracting in to our subconscious minds. For an instant we grab at them: what was that thought; that image; that dream….. that nightmare?  
 
Sadly – they are all too quickly gone, supplanted by the here and now, and we are left with an odd sense of loss, like we just missed something; an idea balanced on the precipice of some profound realisation, vaporised by the searing light of waking thought. Yet somewhere in the recesses of our dark minds the echoes of that dream state linger; like after images burned into our retina, amorphous and indiscernible …….   
 
Thankfully – there is an artist who can reach into that murky reservoir at will and draw forth visions of another realm; alien and unsettling, and yet disturbingly familiar. Paul Gerrard is a visionary for whom there is no barrier between the waking world and the landscape of nightmares. His artwork pierces the black veil of imagination to reveal an ecosystem of profane savagery and surreal textures where flesh meets fluid and hands sprout toothy maws like flowering fungi. It is gruesome, horrific, and yet beckoning in its sensual allure. Those same wispy tentacles of dream-scent that dance out of reach as we wake, now reach out of the page to entwine and intoxicate our senses, drawing us into Paul’s pernicious, briny menagerie. Whether we accept their slithery seduction is up to us. Do these nether-spheric images invite us into the embrace of the world of dreams, or beckon us to a darker fate? What messages do these conjured entities bring? Where will this journey beneath the sacred surface of consciousness lead, and will they be our guides in what lies beyond……. or possibly, our captors?  
Do you dare to turn the page with me?  

Richard Taylor : Founder of  Wētā Workshop