PAINTER. LONDON. UNITED KINGDOM.
I tried to imitate nature for a long time and it never quite worked out. The German philosopher Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel might have come quite close to the core of the problem in his lectures on aesthetics. He stated that by mere imitation, art cannot stand in competition with nature, and, if it tries, it looks like a worm trying to crawl after an elephant. I think the only way to deal with the problem is to create your own version of nature, your own visual language.
It’s a pretty boring story. I always used to paint. I started out with watercolour and then moved on to oil paint when I was around 12. My mother didn’t like the oil paint because it smelled too strong so I had to move back to watercolour. Now I’m back to oil and she can’t do anything about it.
Painting is a very direct medium and it has the ability to create space where there actually is none. I like playing with this illusion. At the same time it is a very challenging medium as it has such a long tradition and many paths have been explored by painters that came before you.
My studio is like a refuge that exists in a parallel universe. In a way it has transformed me as much as I have transformed the walls, the floor and pretty much every inch of available space. There is a quite ugly red table, a beautifully messed-up floor and a chair with lots of paint on it. It’s the most uncomfortable chair you can imagine but still I love it.
Art is an escape from reality and at the same time confronts you with that same reality. It can offer a new perspective on things and allows us to experiment without having to produce an immediate result. This freedom is what I love about it.