To Talk About Paintings Is Not Only

I Believe That You Always Have To Believe. It's The Only Way; After All We Both Believe That We Will Do This Exhibition. But I Can't Believe In God, As Such, He's Either Too Big Or Too Small For Me, And Always Incomprehensible, Unbelievable.

If, While I'm Painting, I Distort Or Destroy A Motif, It Is Not A Planned Or Conscious Act, But Rather It Has A Different Justification: I See The Motif, The Way I Painted It, Is Somehow Ugly Or Unbearable. Then I Try To Follow My Feelings And Make It Attractive. And That Means A Process Of Painting, Changing Or Destroying - For However Long It Takes - Until I Think It Has Improved. And I Don't Demand An Explanation From Myself As To Why This Is So.

I Believe I Am Looking For Rightness. My Work Has So Much To Do With Reality That I Wanted To Have A Corresponding Rightness. That Excludes Painting In Imitation. In Nature Everything Is Always Right: The Structure Is Right, The Proportions Are Good, The Colours Fit The Forms. If You Imitate That In Painting, It Becomes False.

As Far As The Surface Is Concerned - Oil On Canvas, Conventionally Applied - My Pictures Have Little To Do With The Original Photograph. They Are Totally Painting (whatever That May Mean). On The Other Hand, They Are So Like The Photograph That The Thing That Distinguished The Photograph From All Other Pictures Remains Intact.

My Work Has So Much To Do With Reality That I Wanted To Have A Corresponding Rightness. That Excludes Painting In Imitation.