03/01/2016
"A definition of my work, is not easy. Whilst it shows certain common features, there are other characteristics which are at variance with one another and some elements seem to project beyond the purely naïve.
But one may legitimately ask, surely other artists and artistic movements confront us with similar difficulties? Where does Impressionism end and Expressionism begin? Is it possible to draw a clear distinction between Analytical Cubisma and Synthetic Cubism? The validity of such terms is not in question, but the problem remains.
There are "professional' painters amongst the Naïves, such as Chagall, Rousseau and Lowry RA.
Every true painter painter has his/her own vision of the world which, in some mysterious way, is uniquely different from that of any other. This is why true art is not something that can be taught, and any attempt to imitate it will be as spurious a copy of an abstract picture by Kandinsky.
The individual vision of every painter arises from a condition of the soul, which is particularly unique and commanding. this vision, like every artistic concept, merges with a necessity to express itself, a necessity much stronger than the artist him/herself. The necessity to realise vision at all costs. One is reminded of what Rousseau said; "It is not I that am drawing, it is this thing at the end of my hand." the conclusion to be drawn from this is that the artist is akin to a person possessed in the grip of a 'thing', the nature of which the artist cannot logically understand.
What long ago was interpreted as clumsy, awkward and lacking any painterly skills now demonstrates an arrangement as orderly and coherent as that of any other kind of painting. Paintings rhythms are consistent, colors harmonize - only differently, that is all.
The archaic, old-fashioned look of my work goes back to the archetypes discovered by the famous Zurich psychoanalyst Carl Jung; one might say that naïve painters have certain pictorial ideas circulating in their subconscious which, quite spontaneously, demand to be given release. Their pictures seem to begin like an old fairy tale, "Once upon a time...".
I want my work to be neither of yesterday nor of today, but timeless. Perhaps of tomorrow, who knows. One might put it apply by saying that I am for ever in search of a 'paradise lost' and that my painting is a transfiguration of all those things that modern life has robbed and cheated me of, a creation of 'paradise regained'.
The journey leading me here has been very diverse. Certain quite distinct things have had to happen to me on the way.
