INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1 Your painting has got a mystical and poetic effectiveness. How do achive it?
2 Why always human bodies and faces?
3 Budha images have got a special meaning for you. Can you explain us a little your interest to Budha or Budhism?
4 You use complicated/several techniques and materials together. How did you improve the special artistic expressin way or language?
5 I suppose your art feed by literature. Who are your favorites as authors or poets?
6 As geographic location you're at the heart of Europe. However Belgium is not among the art centres of the World. I mean the are some extraordinary painters like you in your country. But London, Paris or New York continue being the art centres of world. What is your opinion on the matter?
7 In an old issue of our magazine an article on an old Belgian painter Felicien Rops. What are you commends on his art?
8 As we talked before (by email) you like Istanbul, and your expressions on our city was very poetic. Don't you want to visit Istanbul by an Exhibition? Have you got a plan for Turkey?
9 Again, Belgium. I suppose the multicultural character of your country (Dutch, French, German and foreign immigrant cultures) is a chance for the arts and entellectual life of Belgium? Do you agree with me?
10 What are your new projects and exhibitions?


I tried to answer as best as I could :


1 If my work has got a mystical and poetic element , this may be the result of an effort to make the images as exact and as true to themselves as possible . One has to dance oneself out of the picture in order to let the picture exist . The traces of that dance are the lines and colours of the image . Sufism , Hassidism , Taoism all taste as mystic as bread and tea .

2 The human body and face are our most intimate landscapes , everything is there : trees , clouds , rocks , rain and heat , all seasons travel in and over a face . Human history cristalizes every second in the eyes of the one before you .

3 The form of the Buddha - face , his serenity and awareness of the inner - outer world , the freedom allowed to oneself and to others , these are all elements that speak to me .

4 One has to invent the language one speaks by speaking it . I am not aware of using a clear - cut technique . Often I follow my hands , through years of daily practice they have learned what to do and what to avoid . This is a life - long voyage into always new territory .

5 Litterature can be very exciting , it moves my mind and my painter's hand . Shakespeare , Proust , Rimbaud , Joyce , Chuang Tzu , Tu Fu , Montaigne , Villon ...

6 Belgium is a center of energy to me . All books , music and a sense of history can be found in the library around the corner . The latest computer technology is available everywhere . As for London , Paris and N.Y. ,these are useful business centers , close by and easily available . They have beautiful museums and exhibitions to offer .

7 There is a Rops - retrospective in Brussels for the moment . I haven't seen it but am aware of his art .

8 It would be a pleasure to come to Istanbul with an exhibition . I have no concrete plans for Turkey , but if someone would offer me a possibility , I would gladly consider it .

9 The whole world moves around freely here , one can absorb and use many different ways of behaviour and at the same time stay close to ones roots . This may be a strength .

10 The next exhibition will be in Switzerland For the moment I'm working on some small faces , oil on panel , very dense . I want them to attract the eye in a fatal way , a one way ticket way , like a black hole in the universe , an invisible center of gravity that bends and sucks up the light .