I'm Trying To Paint A

There Was No Special Event That Made Me Decide. I Had Collected Some Photos And The Idea Was In The Back Of My Mind For A Long Time. It Was Growing And Growing, So Finally I Said, 'i Must Paint This.' I Come From East Germany And Am Not A Marxist, So Of Course At The Time I Had No Sympathy For The Ideas, Or For The Ideology That These People Represented. I Couldn't Understand, But I Was Still Impressed. Like Everyone, I Was Touched. It Was An Exceptional Moment For Germany.

It Is A Danger To Wait Around For An Idea To Occur To You. You Have To Find The Idea.

When I First Painted A Number Of Canvases Grey All Over (about Eight Years Ago), I Did So Because I Did Not Know What To Paint, Or What There Might Be To Paint: So Wretched A Start Could Lead To Nothing Meaningful. As Time Went On, However, I Observed Differences Of Quality Among The Grey Surfaces - And Also That These Betrayed Nothing Of The Destructive Motivation That Lay Behind Them. The Pictures Began To Teach Me. By Generalizing A Personal Dilemma, They Resolved It.

It Can Be A Work By Mondrian, A Piece Of Music By Schönberg Or Mozart, A Painting By Leonardo, Barnett Newman Or Also Jackson Pollock. That's Beautiful To Me. But Also Nature. A Person Can Be Beautiful As Well. And Beauty Is Also Defined As 'untouched'. Indeed, That's An Ideal: That We Humans Are Untouched And Therefore Beautiful.

Painting Is Consequently An Almost Blind, Desperate Effort, Like That Of A Person Abandoned, Helpless, In Totally Incomprehensible Surroundings.