The Likeness of Us is the joint vision of Clare artists Elaine Tucker and Óscar Mascareñas. The collection features images in colour and monochrome of wildlife from Ireland, Mexico and England, where the artists explore their self-nature in inter-relationship with the world. Through a form of inquiry that is based on simplicity, directness, and profundity, it aims to capture the spontaneous, ephemeral essence of the natural world as it unfolds, while revealing the beautiful, inevitable, and unfathomable bond that exists between all sentient beings, echoing the sentiments of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and symbolist painter Eugène Carrière.

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Elaine and Óscar practise photography together, and yet each of them observes and creates out of their own awareness of being. This allows them to produce images that mirror their simultaneous experience of nature with contrasting yet concerted character and quality.

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While photography is often seen as a medium that fixes a moment of life in time, it is impermanence that makes life possible. In harmony with life’s impermanent nature, Elaine and Óscar propose that, with regard to the relationship between their work and the observers, the latter do not merely experience a static image 'made' by someone else, but rather inhabit an ever-changing creation of their own: a dynamic reflection of the in-sight of Self through the vibrations of the inner eye. Like the still lake that perfectly reflects trees, birds, clouds and rocks as they are in the present moment, the images in The Likeness of Us are true, embodied impressions of the spiritual rhythms that shape the artists’ relationship with nature.

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In a world where quiet and stillness have become a much-needed antidote against the noises and overt excesses of contemporary society, The Likeness of Us offers an intimate space for introspection, reconnection and insightful observation.

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The images below are Óscar Mascareñas's own embodiment of this space.

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