To Make A Photograph Is Already The

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.

The Desire To Please Is Maligned, Unfairly. There Are Many Sides To It. First Of All, Pictures Have To Arouse Interest Before People Will Even Look At Them, And Then They Have To Show Something That Holds That Interst - And Naturally They Have To Be Presentable, Just As A Song Has To Be Sung Well, Otherwise People Run Away. One Mustn't Underrate This Quality, And I Have Always Been Delighted When My Pieces Have Also Appealed To The Museum Guards, The Laymen.

But It Is Also Untrue That I Have Nothing Specific In Mind. As With My Landscapes: I See Countless Landscapes, Photograph Barely 1 In 100,000, And Paint Barely 1 In 100 Of Those That I Photograph. I Am Therefore Seeking Something Quite Specific; From This I Conclude That I Know What I Want.

The Paint For The Grey Paintings Was Mixed Beforehand And Then Applied With Different Implements - Sometimes A Roller, Sometimes A Brush. It Was Only After Painting Them That I Sometimes Felt That The Grey Was Not Yet Satisfactory And That Another Layer Of Paint Was Needed.

I Was A Student, And As Such You Generally Rely On Prior Models Of How To Make Art, But These Were Not Satisfying. Then I Discovered In Photos What Had Been Missing In Paintings; Namely That They Make A Terrific Variety Of Statements And Have Great Substance. That Is What I Wanted To Convey To Paintings And Apply To It.