Gamers 

Lucia Heffernan's painting presents us with a vivid scene of dogs engrossed in video games, their wide-eyed expressions capturing a mix of excitement and shock. Here, the dartboard above is suggestive. The game, like that of a video game, has the potential for mastery, skill and precision, however, the results are often aleatoric and unpredictable, and thus, a trigger for strong emotions. As humans have done for millennia, these dogs are surrendering themselves to the possibilities of the game, allowing themselves to feel raw emotion, from delight to anger. We can see in their faces. Consider the symbolic weight of such universal experiences as the game. Even its more primitive versions -the hunt, the lottery- are capable of mobilizing collective memory and subconscious processes. Each represents the cycle of life: to try, to fail, to overcome, to begin again. The atavistic emotions of these dogs remind us of the enduring human fascination with chance. In this light, Heffernan's work reveals an interesting and cyclical progression of a symbol that has resurfaced, evolved, and taken on new meanings in various historical contexts.