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Did you study painting?
Many people probably find the idea attractive that you can learn how to paint, go through some sort of apprenticeship. I went to art college and still call myself an autodidact. That's not a joke. I didn't study painting. I mean I can't truly say that I am self-taught either and at the same time I feel I am. It's difficult to declare how much you can actually learn at college. We did a lot of talking. When I left college I felt I knew next to nothing. You seem to know a lot about contemporary art and you are very keen to join in and do your video installation bit. Then someone wants to know something about the Renaissance and you haven't got a clue.
Why does it take you so long to finish a painting?
I question too much. How big, how long, more to the right perhaps, background a little darker. It would be easy if I only had to paint the finished painting. It's the how you get there that takes time. Let's say I'm slow because I need a lot of time!
Where do you get your ideas from?
I start with an idea but always end up somewhere else. The idea can be a building or a toy I pick up from the street, anything really. It's never the painter I quote in one way or another. I don't know why I do that. Perhaps it's a kind of supporting act in case I forget my lines. Or it is simply the pleasure of mimicking somebody else's voice. But those quotations are never the main force. They come in at a very late stage and help push the painting in a certain direction. I can't say much more than that. It is not the way students used to copy their masters. I see the quotations as illustrative readymades. I take them and put them in a new narrative context.
What's your philosophy? I know you are deeply sceptical. Does philosophy play a part in your work at all?
To make art is also to think about art. It's impossible to separate. I am a practitioner. I love the making and that's fine by me, I am happy to sporadically get some inspiration from intellectual stuff. And yes, life is without meaning. But still worth living and thinking about.