ARTIST STATEMENT

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Color, oil paint, is the main issue in my art. Color as a matter that can be sculpted, shaped, engraved and shoveled. In most of my paintings  color is strong and dominant, while line and composition – though not neglected – are secondary. In addition to canvas, I often paint on old books, bibles, art books, monetarynotes, accountbooks, comics, etc. I'm intrigued by text, print and painting relations. Perhaps because I was a bookworm as a child, I enjoy erasing words with paint. A kind of renewed self-definition.

Being a 20th century product, realism, modernism, and abstract are my points of reference, and the periods that influenced and shaped me. I create from an internal place, but the traditions of art and their history are familiar to me and presence clearly in my background. I believe that art cannot be created in a vacuum.

At first, my paintings were figurative. The bible and mythology were the subjects that interested me the most. Furthermore, I drew from observation. In the past few years, I've become more absorbed in the abstract. Basic forms intrigue me, I keep reverting to them obsessively and never quench. The free play and the relations between shapes and  colors are what I relish.

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I enjoy creating series. They release me from the need to decide What to draw and let me concentrate and work 
solely on the How. I go back again and again to a certain form or composition and explore it thoroughly. 

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When I work, I'm always surprised by the gap between intention and outcome, the produce of the matter's own will, objection and point of view. In those precious moments, when the action streams off effortlessly, I feel myself become a mere instrument; I'm only a tube, or an insignificant mediator. These are rare moments of exaltation. 

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