THOUGHTS ABOUT ART AND PAINTING

Since very long the arts circle around the void. The importance though, is to make beautiful circles...

Art is like trying to create the monster of Frankenstein. An object that is alive. It should be stronger than everyday reality. This is not possible. All stays within the world we live in. We are not gods.

In order to make a strong image, one should work on two levels; make an interesting interpretation of something and make it interesting as a painting/object.

The search for a style:

A style does not come by searching for it, thinking about how one should paint a priori. A style may find its shape thanks to the to be painted subject and what one desires to show with it. Style has to do with fighting one's own incapacities; a personal style exists in finding more or less the same solutions over and over again, trying to do the impossible. By trying to overcome one's limited talents. The search and doubt are the most important. The rest comes on its own. One has a style or one has not. This is for others to decide.

There exists no style that guarantees art, the only way to making art is to fight one's own mannerisms.

What better to do with freedom, than to fight coincidence?

Only by trying to outsmart yourself, you can make art. If you try to outsmart others, you do a trick.

The idea of progress in art is an old and outlived idea. In these times everything is possible. No walls have to be broken down, no prejudices to be fought. This gives an enormous freedom. Now we can go for the real thing. We don’t have to be prophets anymore. We can just be artists who make beautiful and meaningful things.

Don't try to prove something. Don't try to be avantgardistic, progressive and politically correct. If you follow these 'ideals', the arts become of second grade. This art survives for a very short period. After that, it becomes an illustration of a dead idea.

Loose thoughts:

Many of my opinions about good art are the motor of my painting anger. The useless discussions about abstract/figurative; the utterly boring 'search' for the 'essence' by eliminating and avoiding comparison with what we see... I get more and more annoyed about these matters while working and then all of a sudden a nice painting peeps around the corner. It comes alive while I was 'fighting' all these paper tigers...

My desired definition of 'contemporary art';

Contemporary art is art, that moves the spectator today. It is not important when or by whom the work was made or why (Hence, Rembrandt is one of the greatest contemporary artists). 
All the other criteria used are mostly misleading and only for the glory of the one using them. Many times, I think these criteria are used more for marketing sake or as sales excuses.


Artists who have greatly inspired and guided me are Rembrandt, Horst Janssen, Vermeer, Francis Bacon, Velasquez, Hercules Seghers, Emil Nolde, Goya, Picasso, Willem de Kooning, Chardin, Monet, Turner and Frank Auerbach amongst the many, many others.