The Tower

Spaces in the Pictures

Usually it is not good when painters write or philosophise but since I cannot be present myself,
I would like to try to answer the question why I paint the way do.

There are many subjects about which I cannot give the slightest information because it escapes the control of the intellect. Some could even be unknown shapes coming from the unconscious. I will try to explain the conscious process of finding new forms.

The paintings are produced by the creative desire for new spaces. So that these spaces may be experienced, they have to have objects, movement and light. At first it seemed unimportant which kind of objects, movement and light I chose and in which way they filled the picture surfaces but by using these I recognized the following points:

1. Subjects could be: formless organic ones, they could be freely invented, hollow or pierced, drawn from familiar surroundings or made from other materials using shapes which are not the original ones, as well as a combination of all the above (space, movement, light and colour are also "unfamiliar").
I do not know why these forms offer themselves to the conscious mind. However, these processes or similar ones have long been known in modern art and attempts have been made by experts to interpret them.

2. (I think this has also been discovered by others after the first period of surrealism had gone by which pleased itself by simply painting objects which they threw together in a haphazard manner.)
A law surfaced, until then unknown, which requires a certain order as to the manner forms are painted. Thus, a painting which fulfils this law is considered good - or not good when this law is broken. It is not possible for me to describe what is "good" in a painting in any other way. It reveals itself to the person who looks at the picture if he is open to it and does not react aversively any longer to the strange forms in the pictures. This is a question of getting used to it.

3. (Here I am venturing into a difficult area since one is usually led astray when attempting to examine one's own creative process, i.e. to determine in which layer of the unconscious lie the decisions one makes.)
When the "law of form" is fulfilled, a meaning surfaces which until then was not suspected; I believe that this realization is at par with Dante's statement:
"All things are related to each other; only this law assures that the Universe resembles God."

I have to try to be more precise since this train of thought justifies my art or does not justify it.
To repeat: I take objects which are unrelated to each other. I place them in a certain order according to an unknown, inner law which results in a statement which was absolutely unintended. Furthermore, the outcome is always more remarkable and more amazing than an intended statement could ever be.

(Text: Wolfgang Lettl)