the work becomes its own reason for being
Sometimes I’m convinced that there is nothing else but the physical act of making the art.
I often now talk about building a painting instead of painting a painting.
This needs a little this, this needs a little this, this needs a little this.
I don’t question it, I follow my intuition. That’s what I do.
Ocean with Cross 1 2005
lithograph
Most of the changes in the work occur when I have had some kind of an experience that has been like a little awakening experience. Usually out in life and I’ve forgotten all about it and then somehow it creeps into the work. I don’t know how to say that.
It’s hard to talk about painting. I mean, it’s hard for me to talk about the painting because I don’t know a lot about it. You know, in a way I don’t know that much about it. It isn’t like I’m totally in control of everything.
I do like kind of impossible images. I mean images that are hard to pin down. That aren’t like a tabletop and an apple, but images that are really almost like mind images. Images that are space but they’re hard to grasp. But then they’re very graspable here, I mean, I make them accessible through another way, through manipulating the paint.
– Vija Celmins
Source: PBS Website
More information at Wikipedia
Image © copyright Vija Celmins
On the blog: Vija Celmins – a certain kind of presence
the awakened eye 