Something Already There

There are things I sense before I can see them.

I am drawn to that moment before a painting begins—when something is already present, but not yet visible.

I feel it somewhere at the back of my head. As if it is already fully formed, complete, but still out of reach. I cannot see it until I begin.

It returns insistently. I cannot forget it. I do not need to write it down.

It is there.

But this does not mean I understand it. I see something, but I do not try to explain it. Only when I begin—sketching, or painting—do the questions appear. Sometimes, later, there is a moment of recognition. Connections I did not see before, with my life and with other works.

 

I never know if it is worth following. I don’t calculate.

If anything guides me, it is a feeling of lightness. Freedom. A kind of openness.

Nothing works for me when it comes from pressure. There has to be something of play, of innocence.

If I ever seriously asked myself is it worth it? I think I would stop.

 

Some visions I postpone. And I know this is not good.

Even if I remember everything—where I was, what I heard, what I felt—something from that moment is no longer fully there.

I have the impression that these images arrive at a specific time, for a specific person.

Sometimes I feel I am making something for someone I do not know. Someone who sees and feels the same thing at that moment.

When I ignore it, it feels like stepping away from a meeting that will not happen again.

 

Silence is essential.

Not the absence of sound, but something internal—a permission not to speak.

At night, it becomes clearer. I often work until morning, watching the light change. Time moves differently then. There is more space for memory and feeling. Even music is heard more deeply.

 

There are paintings that wait for years. I have one I call the painting with swans.

There are no swans on it.

They are still in the vision. I know it would take minutes to add them.

And yet—I don’t.

 

 

When I begin, the first mark is always fragile. Light. Interrupted. Uncertain.

Even when I feel ready.

As if I might scare something away. Like watching a wild animal—not wanting to disturb it.

There is something of mapping a space, of approaching it carefully.

Slowly, or quickly—depending on what it asks.

But always with attention not to lose what was there at the beginning.

 

 

The first layer is often closest to that initial feeling.

I remember my brother once said, looking at an early stage of a painting:
“It looks good now. But you will probably add more and ruin it.”

I think about this often. It may be why I do not try to finish a painting.

Maybe it does not need to be finished.

Maybe someone else can continue it in their own way.

 

Not everything becomes a painting. Some things remain. Some are covered.

Hidden under other works. There are paintings beneath paintings.

I can still see them sometimes.

They mattered—even if no one else saw them.

I am more interested now in what is arriving than in what I did not complete.

Some things were never meant to become paintings.

Maybe another form.

Maybe something that stays unseen.

Not everything needs to take shape.

And not everything that is real needs to be shown.