38b

When I look at paintings I have no use for verisimilitude; I am not interested in seeing something painted in a focal clarity that even a camera struggles to give us. I am not really interested in psychological truth; not at the expense of surface.

Paintings can tell stories, reveal psychosis, capture sensation, evoke an atmosphere, but all of these endeavours should be abandoned if the painting demands it: If the painting could be taken somewhere more interesting.

Everything else is just a way in and therefore all subjects are equally valid; are just a platform upon which to tackle a question.

Perhaps these questions have always existed; (and that’s why we return to old paintings.) And when we are painting we are not looking for solutions, just hypotheses, and I want beautiful or interesting hypotheses.

When I am writing I am after the truth because I am referring to something else. When I make a painting I am making something new: A referent.

Good paintings are liars, are shifty, they are inscrutable, they hide things, but we don’t care, we want to be deceived.

A painting should be as accurate as a good story.