Rembrandt Lucrezia Borgia 1666 (copy) Print

When I was a child, I enjoyed looking at pictures inside an old encyclopedia. Once, I stumbled upon a small black and white reproduction of Mona Lisa. The passion was conceived. I drew her face with chalk on the street, charcoal on the wall in my fathers carpenters workshop, on a dusty car window, everywhere. For my graduation series of works I decided not to philosophize with the selection of motives and themes the way I did during studies. I decided to keep it simple. Paint intimate moments inside my house in which I was born and still live, and immediate surrounding, as this is what I know and expirience unrelentingly. Analogous to the often heard advice for writters "writte about what you know". If you don't find beauty in your immediate surrounding where you open your eyes in the morning, you will hardly find it anywhere, not in Venice, nor in Paris. Subject matter is close to you. For now, I paint the impression of what is in front of me, very close to me. And going closer and closer I plan to sometime paint what is inside of my mind. Meaning: full abstraction. My painting, although currently still somewhat traditional and academic, partly because of...well, academic obligations, and partly because of nostalgic forces acting out my initial fascination with classical painting as a young boy, nevertheless contain sparks of my desire to liberate my expression, hints of my uncontrolled idiosyncratic movements. My notebooks are being rapidly filled with observations, logical conclusions, clear and concrete ideas that will stay in my mind as I gradually strip away the unnecessities from my painting and create by free play within and upon the fundamental ideas in the upcoming times. Also, I plan on building a wooden structure, an installation to express the joy of growing up in such a stimulating and wonderful environment.