The Painting Is Not On A Surface,

Lots Of Artists Who Paint Have The Experience To One Degree Or Another... Where Their Thinking Doesn't Precede Their Doing... It's A Funny Thing, What I Really Hate Yet I Have To Go Through With It, Is The Preparation.

Painting Is An Illusion, A Piece Of Magic, So What You See Is Not What You See. I Don't Know What A Painting Is; Who Knows What Sets Off Even The Desire To Paint? It Might Be Things, Thoughts, A Memory, Sensations, Which Have Nothing To Do Directly With Painting Itself. They Can Come From Anything And Anywhere.

It Is Possible To Make A Living Thing, Not A Diagram Of What I Have Been Thinking: To Posit With Paint Something Living, Something That Changes Each Day.

Sometimes I Scrape Off A Lot. You Have On The Floor, Like Cow Dung In The Field, This Big Glob Of Paint... And It's Just A Lot Of Inert Matter, Inert Paint. Then I Look Back At The Canvas, And It's Not Inert - It's Active, Moving And Living.

That's What I Mean By Something Grips In A Canvas. The Moment That Happens You Are Then Sucked Into The Whole Thing. Like Some Kind Of Rhythm.