... Landscapes Or Still-lifes I Paint In

Illusion - Or Rather Appearance, Semblance - Is The Theme Of My Life (could Be Theme Of Speech Welcoming Freshmen To The Academy). All That Is, Seems, And Is Visible To Us Because We Perceive It By The Reflected Light Of Semblance. Nothing Else Is Visible.

I First Came Up With The Idea For The Colour-chart Pictures Back In 1966, And My Preoccupation With The Topic Culminated In 1974 With A Painting That Consisted Of 4,096 Colour Fields. Initially I Was Attracted By The Typical Pop Art Aestheticism Of Using Standard Colour-sample Cards; I Preferred The Unartistic, Tasteful And Secular Illustration Of The Different Tones To The Paintings Of Albers, Bill, Calderara, Lohse, Etc.

As Far As The Surface Is Concerned - Oil On Canvas, Conventionally Applied - My Pictures Have Little To Do With The Original Photograph. They Are Totally Painting (whatever That May Mean). On The Other Hand, They Are So Like The Photograph That The Thing That Distinguished The Photograph From All Other Pictures Remains Intact.

Maybe We Didn't Even Have A Chance. The Message Of American Pop Art Was So Powerful And So Optimistic. But It Was Also Very Limited, And That Led Us To Believe That We Could Somehow Distance Ourselves From It And Communicate A Different Intention.

The Year Is Always Correct, Also The Month, Only The Day Can Be Another. But That Occurs To Me Only In The Moment Of Writing It Down.