Kirsten Perry
“Hide”
Charcoal on paper
30 x 30 cm
Charcoal on paper
30 x 30 cm
Young children commonly believe they are invisible when covering or closing their eyes, a game that my daughter delights in. Rather than the conventional understanding of this as an ego-centric belief that if they can’t see, they are “unseen”, recent research in cognitive developmental psychology suggests that it is actually mutual eye contact – a meeting of the gazes - that children understand as key to the perception of ‘self’.
I showed my daughter the completed drawing – she told me she was hiding.