I Believe The Reason I Love Painting

What Is Important To Me In My Work Is The Identity That Is Hidden Behind So-called Reality. I Search For A Bridge From The Given Present Tot The Invisible, Rather As A Famous Cabalist Once Said, 'if You Wish To Grasp The Invisible, Penetrate As Deeply As Possible Into The Visible'.

In Principle, Any Abstraction Of The Object Is Allowed Which Has A Sufficiently Strong Creative Power Behind It.

I Am Working Here (in Amsterdam) On My Last Big Triptych, Which Will Be A Tremendous Story, And Which Gives Me A More Intense Life And Exhilaration. My God, Life Is Worth Living!

We Will Enjoy Ourselves With The Forms That Are Given Us: A Human Face, A Hand, The Breast Of A Woman Or The Body Of A Man, A Glad Or Sorrowful Expression, The Infinite Seas, The Wild Rocks, The Melancholy Language Of The Black Trees In The Snow, The Wild Strength Of Spring Flowers And The Heavy Lethargy Of A Hot Summer Day When Pan, Our Old Friend, Sleeps And The Ghosts Of Midday Whisper. This Alone Is Enough To Make Us Forget The Grief Of The World, Or To Give It Form.

The World Is Rather Shot To Pieces [end Of World War Ii - 1945], But The Spectators Climb Out Of Their Caves And Pretend To Have Again Become Normal And Customary Humans Who Ask Each Other's Pardon Instead Of Eating One Another Or Sucking Each Other's Blood. The Entertaining Folly Of War Evaporates, Distinguished Boredom Sits Down Again On The Dignified Old Overstuffed Chairs.. .may I Report About Myself That I Have Had A Truly Grotesque Time, Brim-full With Work, Nazi Persecutions, Bombs, Hunger, And Again And Again Work - In Spite Of Everything [a. O. Using His Bed Sheets As Canvas For The New Paintings].