“There is no place for cynicism, only joy, passion and wonderment, clarity and eagerness.”
Paintings are a seduction, one develops a relationship with these inanimate objects which becomes a bond like a living person, a mirror, a realm of elusive power. Art plays a game of structural truthfulness, it becomes alive. It contains and understands ecstasy through colour as light. The artist must try to make every song sing and push beyond the fixing of appearances. There is no place for cynicism, only joy, passion and wonderment, clarity and eagerness. Painting should be made to look easy, painting as the embodiment of what it is to be human. Paintings are a kind of dream language, and like music they propose a new reality. Simplicity can give them their greatest power.
From a talk first given at the Tate Gallery in 1994; and again in 2005 in Mauritius (titled ‘Invisible Artist or Performing Bear’)