“I am interested in the relationship with reality, because I can look at the information it provides and indulge its nature and language. But there is more. These natural elements are usually excuses for the shapes and even symbols that arise from my subconscious. I choose to convey a message of simplicity, calm and thoughtfulness, rather than torment or despondency. The atmosphere in each painting must come through as a ‘painting of silence’, without noise or excess. The pictorial space can have its own life, leaving all temporal conventions behind and focusing on a specific moment in time, a moment whose end I don’t wish to witness. Colour can spread outside of confined shapes and create partial abstraction: a compromise that reduces the call of the material. I look for juxtapositions between opposite forces, simplicity and complexity, formal rigour and form dissolution. I use contrasting and complementary warm and cold tones… to evoke movement that exists within the boundaries of the painting. As a result, the final stage of any work in progress is never completely predictable. And this is how it should be. Being aware of the direction of modern painting (or the end of it) and the limits of tradition, I use my research as an opportunity to create an intimate and personal relationship with the invisible reality. As Cezanne said: “Painting is not just about copying nature; it’s creating harmony between different relationships, transposing them into a specific system of tones, and developing them according to the rules of a new, original logic.” A closing thought from Matisse: “Whoever truly has something to say is driven to say it by his emotions, which lead him to developing the work in relation to his individual qualities.”