I Do Not Mistrust Reality, Of Which

I Don't Mistrust Reality, Of Which I Know Next To Nothing. I Mistrust The Picture Of Reality Conveyed To Us By Our Senses, Which Is Imperfect And Circumscribed.

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.

When I Paint From A Photograph, Conscious Thinking Is Eliminated. I Don't Know What I Am Doing. My Work Is Far Closer To The Informel Than To Any Kind Of 'realism'. The Photograph Has An Abstraction Of Its Own, Which Is Not Easy To See Through.

Throwaway Snapshots Come Closest To Achieving The State Of Pure Picture.

But I Would Like To Reach The Point Where I Could Cut Up An Illustrated Magazine At Random And See To It That The Parts Would Each Become A Painting. I Cannot Properly Explain It Right Now. Already Now I Am Searching For The Most Boring And Irrelevant Photo Material That I Can Find. And I Would Like To Get To The Point Soon Where This Determined Irrelevance Could Be Retained, In Favor Of Something That Would Be Covered Up Otherwise By Artifice.