ARTIST STATEMENT

We live in a world of which we know so little. I paint to reveal to myself my intuitions of an intricate reality and to communicate with the viewer on a deeper level. Our experience of life operates through our senses, emotions and intellect. As human beings we also have as early as in the Middle Paleolithic, collectively developed different forms of expression for a sense of something beyond that some call spirituality.

I convey, mostly with acrylic on canvas or paper, visions of colors, shapes, rhythms, spatial organization, and contrasts in an attempt to describe a reality that is all together abstract, impressionist and figurative. In my process I put myself in the place of the primordial creator, going from blank page to chaos, chaos to appearing forms, forms to stories to feelings and emotions. And sometimes, like in an act of shamanism, I have the feeling that I’ve reached something further. I initiated a ripple in still water that revealed the water itself and, in the meantime, evolved in my ability to connect with nature and humanity by giving birth to beings of all sorts of species, races, ages, conditions, expressing all sorts of emotions.

My use of transparencies came early in my work. I associate it with truth as it also allows us to see what is behind, concretely, and figuratively through the void spaces within the matter at a quantum level; a level at which the observer plays a role in the experience.

My works are an attempt to experiment with reality and connect with the viewer in a transformative travel through new territories.


- Jean-Luc Sanhes