the imagination may be reckoned with a test of our capacity to control. when we are faced with reduction, we seek, immediately, to know that which has been removed; and when we see restraint, we demand to be told what it is that might have been. Mr. Chartier would present us with the opportunity to examine what a particular quality might be, but on being offered the opportunity, what can easily happen is that nothing can satisfy the automatic engagement of putting things in place which were designed to be left alone. one may say (and indeed probably does) that this is of the essence, but the stated purpose is always thwarted; “nature abhors a vacuum” goes the phrase – but more apropos is something to the tune of “people will not rest without knowing the answers.” by forcing contemplation of emptiness, we see that it is full and are repulsed, and by seeing directly that that which is full is intrinsically empty, we have the carpet pulled out from underneath our feet. when works such as these by Mr. Chartier leave the nest and fly into the flight paths of complete strangers, we might ask if the plane will come down as the birds are sucked into the engines, or will the sensible pilot avoid the situation altogether by means of pretending that another direction was intended all along? we can resort to the negation of the creator’s intention if we so wish; but this opens up so many discrepancies that the effort needed for the denial results in us never being able to experience something outside ourselves, and only the validation of the expectations built up in us by happenstance and lack of (self-) direction. if these “spaces” (for want of a better word) have been filled by our lack of capability to directly apprehend, how can we ever know that they lie in wait? this is an exercise both for the reader *and* the listener.
