d'amore’ that you're working on now. The titles you give your paintings suggest that they tell a story.
a. In a detached sort of way, I suppose they do tell some kind of story. But the interpretation is up to the viewer.
q. Are they what one would call ‘literary’ paintings?
a. I would call them ‘lyrical’, if you are looking for a one-word definition.
q. What kind of stories do they tell?
a. Their subjects? Promise... or longing... or defeat.
q. Some of the subjects you choose are rather pathological - the suicide, for instance.
a. Why pathological? I only paint what I see as the human condition.
q. Who's your favorite painter?
a. Goya. He combines form with humanity. And I'm not primarily thinking of those gloomy etchings of his, either.
q. What are your contacts with other painters?
a. Non-existent. I feel no great desire to fraternize with other painters. Groups, as a general rule, tend to suffer from a phenomenon one might describe as reduced perception.
q. So you paint your friends. What sort of people are they?
a. A rather romantic selection of people. They are the joy of my life.
q. This painting you're working on now looks like The Last Supper.
a. Actually, it's called ‘Birds of Paradise’ and I think it's one of the nicest things I've ever done. It depicts seven people seated next to one another at a table in a night-club. Although they're physically close, it seems as if each one is wrapped in thought - possibly about the others - yet each one is alone, apart. The build-up, both in composition and color, is strictly symmetrical, but the attention is designed to shift toward the right, where the only character who directly confronts the viewer becomes the main point of focus.
q. What are your working-hours? Your paintings somehow look as if they were all done at night.
a. Not at all. I work from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon. I don't paint at night; I sleep at night, in order to dream. Dreaming means a great deal to me.
q. The Freudian playground.
a. (laughs) You might call it that.
q. There's not much nature in your paintings. How do you feel about it?
a. A setting, like any other.
q. This house you built is so magnificent, everything in it is so perfect - how come you don't put houses or objects in your paintings?
a. For the sake of reduction, of spareness. What I'm looking for is balance - in form and content. Anything superfluous is removed.
q. Mention some books you read lately.
a. I just read a thesis by a girl I know, about sado-masochism. It's brilliant - especially the section on Proust. And recently, by a lucky chance, I came across a novel by Jacob Israel de Haan, called Pathologieën. I found it absolutely superb - both in language and construction. You must read it.
q. What magazines do you read, generally?
a. The occasional snobbish glossy. And Andy Warhol's Interview. The doings of the rich and beautiful always make me gasp with envy and delight.
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