April 5, 2020
I was in the studio at 9 a.m., earlier than usual, so that a new painting might finally come into being. I wanted to create something minimalist, monochrome. So I began with a dark gray, nearly black. I mixed it, as I usually do, with chalk dust, marble dust, linseed oil, and sunflower oil, and added a bit of drying accelerator. I taped the edge of the frame so that no paint would get on it, preserving the raw linen. That’s important for the overall impression.
As I shovel the mixed paint onto the canvas, I create a mound in the middle. I then spread it out with the spatula to the edges. Initially, I intended to brush it out further, but I saw that the act of spreading the mound with the spatula was already enough. Nothing more was needed, just a few corrections with the spatula. It felt like drawing. The result is good, successful, and I decide to make several monochrome canvases of the same size. All in muted, colored tones, all coordinated. They will later hang side by side.
I’ve been working in these series for a while now, but hadn’t realized it. I need titles for the series: Stripe Paintings, Monochrome Paintings, and Organic Paintings. I’ll then number the individual works.
April 9, 2020
There’s no way around drawing, but why do I even want to avoid it? To be faster, to skip something? But that’s not how it works. Only through drawing do I reach the painting. Not by copying something, but by putting the images in my head onto paper. That has to succeed, and it just takes practice, I think.
Practice also in visualizing internal things and bringing them to the outside. So where are these internal images? In the subconscious, and I want to bring them up from there.
April 13, 2020
It feels like everything is slipping through my fingers like sand. Every idea, every plan, every chance, every good opportunity. Where am I at 41? Barely further than at 31. Is that really true? Or is that just a negative interpretation?
Painting as constant torment. Always despair, dejection, until something finally succeeds. And even then, satisfaction never lasts. It’s never enough.
On top of that, everything always seems to fall apart. How are the works connected? Why don’t I continue a series longer, more extensively? Because I quickly lose interest in a method. I always want something new, the next thing, the better thing. It’s a restless chase.
April 20, 2020
The question is always: Why paint at all, why create an image? There needs to be an inner necessity, but also an external one. But really, what’s the difference?
I still don’t feel the necessity to paint a representational or even realistic image. It seems superfluous, pointless. What should a painting depict? Even narrative doesn’t interest me (anymore).
At the moment, I manage no more than two or three (small) paintings a week. I’m less frustrated about that than I used to be. I have more patience with the process and more understanding for my detours. In general, I’m calmer, more composed, and I no longer think I’m not good enough. But I still believe the paintings need to get better. And yet I’m now able to accept and appreciate my results.
Die Notizen
“Surprising, unconventional, original, refreshing, liberating, unrepeatable, unique — all this and more must be art, otherwise it isn’t art at all.”