Are you a rather self-absorbed person?

I know you can make it look like it is something positive. He's got a rich inner world. Or you can make it sound like a deficiency. Someone is talented and desperate at the same time. Don't forget the pleasure you can get from looking at a painting, I mean almost existential pleasure. Munch was a kind of charity worker when I was a teenager. Painting for him was a way of dealing with his own precariousness. Everyone around him seemed indifferent, and with all the sorrow and despair he felt, it's easy to see the ambiguity of talent. But I also think that we overestimate art. When did you last spend three minutes in front of a work of art? We know it's there and it appears to be deep and gives us a warm feeling something meaningful can give us. You can be touched by a work of art, but you can be touched by anything.

I think painting for you is some form of refuge. It is not a necessity.

I'm not driven. We live in a liberal and affluent society, I don't feel oppressed. Personally I don't know anyone who is driven. The tortured artist is a popular misconception, a modern myth. People love it because it puts a safe distance between them and the artist. Artists suffer but no more or less than anybody else. I would say that in order to deal with the isolation of painting what you need is passionate engagement and that suits me. You can still be polite as a person and live a balanced life.

I'm still not clear about where you would position yourself as a painter?

I suppose I'm a hybrid. I call myself a post-Conceptual painter, not because it sounds good, it's a banal thing to say. It means that I have been influenced by the traditions of Conceptual art but I am not a Conceptual artist myself. Over the years I have looked at more artworks by Sol LeWitt than by Raphael. My paintings don't make statements. They are open and incomplete. The viewer is invited to finish them. But the concept I have is not hugely important or even more important than the artwork itself like in Conceptual art. My concept is vague, shifty, inconsistent, amorphous. It helps kick-start the process. It's not something I carry around in my head and that popps out already fully formed in the shape of a painting or statement. It's more a way of life or an attitude. Curiosity is important. Awareness is important.

next