Reconstruction 7.4 (2007)
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An Interview with Fatih Benzer / Larry Taylor
Fatih Benzer is a contemporary artist currently based in South Dakota. He is originally from Turkey and has lived and worked in Arizona and California. He has studied at California State University and Arizona State University, where he obtained a doctorate. His paintings have been shown internationally. This interview was conducted during his exhibition, "The Meeting Point, Part II," at the Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center. His unique perspective makes for engaging treatment of the otherwise flattening subject of globalization.
<1> Larry M. Taylor: From the first time that I saw your pictures, especially the landscapes and figurative works, it was seeing that background color come through to the surface that has always struck me. I have always wondered what might be being said there. I don't know if rightly so, but I've always interpreted it as the picture breaking down. I wonder if I'm . . . .
<2> Dr. Fatih Benzer: You're right. It's a good metaphor, the term you use, "picture breaking down." When I went to school back in Turkey the main idea that struck me were the ideas of the post-painterly abstract painters, like Kenneth Noland, Ellsworth Kelly, Frank Stella. I love what those guys did. When you first look at my paintings, especially those figures with bright background colors, you may not have the connection right away, but I think they do have a very strong connection, very strong ties to those modernist ideas of post-painterly abstraction or hard-edge painters. Their idea was to return to the formal qualities of art, reducing the emotional impact of art on a two-dimensional surface especially, like what Sol Lewitt did. I said to myself, I'm interested in the figure, I love the figure, I don't want to give up on the figure, I don't want to change my subject, but how can I, you know . . . use that idea and apply it using figurative imagery unlike post-painterly abstractionists. That started seventeen, eighteen years ago. At that time I was using only pure white background, and then the same idea of using brushstrokes. You could still see the same white behind the brushstrokes. The main idea was for the audience to compare the colors to the white space so that they would be occupied by studying the colors, textures and composition, basically the formal elements of my paintings, rather than the subject matter. I'm not saying that subject matter is not important, it is important, but I want my paintings to play a double role: one about the subject matter, the second is about the painting itself as a subject matter; and the second idea was the idea of post-painterly abstract artists, like Frank Stella. The material and process become art. That's how I started using the colored backgrounds. I said I have to . . . get rid of the white background and use bright colors instead so that the audience is a little bit more confused about what's going on in the background and not be able to focus on the subject only, but also formal qualities. The flatness of the canvas would play a big role - even though I use color perspective and linear perspective. Everything is there distorted because of that background color. I like that contradiction. Not only in my art . . . in my life.
<3> LT: And contradiction is an interesting word, because what some of those artists were after was to totally prevent you to see illusion, but you're not doing that - it's a conflict . . . the illusion is there but it's "prevented." I wonder if the grid also works as a kind of mediator between . . .
<4> FB: It does. The grid reduces my painting into its formal qualities. That's why I like your term, "breaking down the painting." It really functions that way. The grid takes down . . . takes the painting into its formal qualities because it puts a distance between the audience and the work. You don't see the subject right away, there is a grid between the subject and the audience and that creates an artificial space. And I like that sense of space created between the audience and the painting because, maybe as an individual, I like that space . . . reserved for myself when I make art and when I live my life. And that's why I love the idea of the grid, it's so modern. In the sixties and seventies people used the grid. Jennifer Bartlett was one of these [artists] who used the grid; I think she did a lovely job. And when I started using the grid, I didn't know that she used the grid as well. One of my professors at California State said, "you may want to check Jennifer Bartlett because she does use the grid and you have some similarities. And after looking at her paintings, I was so inspired. And I said maybe I should play with the idea of the grid and then see how I can use that as a separation element from the main subject. That was the main idea behind the grid. Plus, it helps you to focus on the abstract qualities of a representational painting. There is nothing hidden about my paintings. Nothing is secret, and I don't like the term secret - at all . . . in life and in art. The grid will help you to pay attention to those design principles, visual elements, whatever you may call them, and it helps you to see those abstract qualities that form that representational, physical subject. And I like that contradiction as well, because you're looking at . . . a representational subject, but it is done in such an abstract manner, that's what I like about using the grid.
<5> LT: And, yes, there are a number of different individuals who use a grid for very different reasons. It strikes me about your grid is that it's not strictly a grid, but there's also some directionals as well.
<6> FB: Directionals . . . directional forces, sometimes what I do - I look at the subject and the composition of the subject allows me to play with the idea of grid. Sometimes those geometrical forms such as triangles, diagonal lines, they will imitate the directional force of the main subject - the representational subject. Those grids are very abstract, very mathematical, geometrical, but they mimic the main subject to a certain degree, so that they enforce the directional force.
<7> LT: One of the pieces we're looking at is the "little pink houses" of Brookings. And I remember in talking with you before that . . . when you first moved here, that was one of the first things that fascinated you; and to somebody who's lived here a long time they may seem like the blandest thing in the world. I'm wondering just what it was about those little pink houses?
<8> FB: Well, I'm from Turkey originally and you don't see that type of architectural structure back in Turkey - you don't see it at all. And I lived in Arizona; they don't have such structures in Arizona as far as I know - I lived there for four or five years. They have Anasazi type of housing, you know, which is very different from Midwest architecture like those houses. And I love those houses because of their colors, the size/scale. The scale is kind of small; they sometimes have very bright colors. And they looked so painterly to me. And I was really inspired by that architectural form and I painted them.
<9> LT: And after seeing one of those paintings you never look at the streetscape in Brookings, SD, quite the same way.
<10> FB: That's what I wanted to do. The same thing with the Volga [SD] painting, those yellow silos or storage bins (I don't really know what they are, but I was told that they are silos used for storage). One person said, "I've been to that place many times, I drive back and forth many times - I never thought this view could be turned into a painting. I thought it was such an ordinary subject, nobody would be interested in [it]." But to me, coming from a different culture it's a very different subject. It's a very different architectural structure that I've never seen in my life so it's very different as well as interesting for me.
<11> LT: You mention your background, and that's very interesting for many reasons. Coming from Turkey and then going to California, Arizona, and then South Dakota, I wonder what you think art can do in terms of building a pluralistic society. You know, there are all kinds of other systems that people look to when they want to foster understanding, but they very seldom look to art.
<12> FB: Well, I think art can do a lot in terms of creating a pluralistic environment. In fact my iconographic paintings do a lot in terms of combining different cultures, and they are all about [the] coexistence of different beliefs - different people living on the same land. And that's what I think of when I think of the United States, you know the "Land of the Free," coexistence. It's a beautiful land, in terms of that. And I think art can serve an incredible deal in terms of unifying people, without really changing their beliefs and their culture. I believe art can do that because, as an individual, I may not be able to do that in my everyday life, but through art - being the painter in front of my canvas - I have almost endless freedom to do whatever I want to do to say what I want to say. And the next step, of course, which is the challenging part, is to find an outlet, a market, where the market is going to support you to present your ideas, to express your ideas. That is much more difficult than producing the art, to find a market where your ideas are going to be supported. But I was lucky to have the show here because it gave me a chance to talk about what I think in terms of pluralism and coexistence and a multicultural structure of society. Those paintings are about that.
<13> LT: Of course, I was at that opening, and I remember you being able to talk very freely. And I remember how the pictures were such a conversation piece. The audience really seemed interested in that part of it, too. Even at this time and this place - even in a small place like South Dakota - people are wondering, you know, "how can we do that?" What strikes me about the iconographic pieces is that I know that you have been interested in semiotics and have utilized some of the ideas of semiotics in those pieces, but I think what you may be doing is something very different compared to how semiotics got started. Semiotics started as a kind of negative critique of language and the idea was that language wasn't really able to communicate and one wasn't really able to be certain or sure of anything. But it seems like what you are doing - maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong - is something (I don't want to say positive but) constructive almost.
<14> FB: It is. That's how I use semiotics - to construct meaning for those icons and symbols that I use.
<15> LT: And you have several symbols that can be read, perhaps, in multiple ways. There are the bees, the fish, the hands, legs and things like this. Then you have a kind of changing symmetry with some of the pieces: there's a star that might be a positive shape that turns into a negative shape on the right side. I'm curious what or how you are playing with expectations in those changes.
<16> FB: Well, for those iconographic paintings, the idea was to create an environment, a space, an alternative space. It's nothing new; nothing in art is ever new in my opinion. It may be a very wrong statement, but I'll say it. I'll go ahead and say it because art is about the human condition. And whatever we do its going to be for the human condition. And people have been doing it for hundreds of years. We like to play with ideas, express ideas, exchange ideas - at the end we're still human beings. We kind of behave the same. Yes, there is art, technology, politics, education. All of those things aim to change human behavior for the better. I don't know if they do or not - as an educator, I'll be honest with you - but I hope they do. I really have the hope that art, education, politics, science, technology, will really change human life for the better - someday, I hope. Anyway, back to your question, I've always been interested in symmetry in my paintings. It may be because of my personality: I like things being in order. I said I want my paintings to look very symmetrical but yet with slight changes, so that the audience will start analyzing those changes. And those changes are so slight and little, small where the audience has to start paying attention - because most of those iconographic paintings are not spoken words, but they are whispered words. So you really have to listen to those changes and you really have to watch them. Because an image of a star in one painting could refer to a flag, but later on it could also refer to an arrow. And a star would be a symbol for a bright future - as many nations use that form for their flags, as you know. But an arrow could also be a symbol for violence. That might be a very slight change, but then the meaning changes behind that form. Some people catch that, some people don't, which is understandable, depending on your background and what you're really looking for in a painting - as much as what a painting is looking for in you. But the main idea of using those architectural forms and very minimal texture in those black iconographic paintings was to create an environment - a foreign environment - where the audience didn't feel attached. They really don't know. I talk to people and they say they don't know what to do when they look at that environment. It's very abstract. They can see the ancient Greek and Roman - or maybe Egyptian - architectural forms there, but it's not quite that. So simply by using those symbols - the bee, the fish, hands and feet, sometimes the image of boats, scorpion - they can feel much more relaxed because those images are images that they can easily associate with in everyday life. But, of course, those images don't have the meaning that they would find in everyday life. I might use a giant bee, for example, that may stand for productivity, production, or leadership. And then I use the image of ladybugs - and Chinese ladybugs sometimes - for population, following the leader basically. And good luck, good fortune could be another meaning behind that, in Turkish culture at least. I used the image of fish back when I was in Turkey six years ago. It didn't matter to me what type of fish image I was going to use. Yes, the texture and color was important. And in fact, the texture and color was more important than what type of fish I used. But I remember people came up and said, "Oh, that's a trout, that's got to have a specific meaning." It doesn't have a specific meaning. Fish itself has a specific meaning to me, regardless of its type, its kind. It is all about isolation and alienation. But when I moved to South Dakota, some people said [the] fish in Christianity might symbolize the image of Christ. And I didn't know that. I said, "Well, I can use that." But it started as a personal iconography that I created for myself. That's how I felt when I was back in Turkey. And then you sometimes see an image of a finished boat or an unfinished boat in my paintings. That image refers to adventure in life as much as the danger in life - being lost . . . . Hands, images of hands and feet, living in Istanbul, a city with a history of hundreds of thousands of years, as you know, you see those images all over the place. They're not new - images of hands and feet coming down from [the] sky - that's been used in Christianity for thousands of years. Sometimes they symbolize a Christ figure, for some people - not in my book, but I can see the connection. The feet, for example, symbolize elevation - getting away from this world, the physical world. Yes, it is spiritual, but it doesn't have a religious connotation in terms of playing a role for Christ or not. They don't have anything to do with this in my opinion. Hands, for example, also are spiritual iconography that I find in Christianity and in Islam as well. I've been working with figures for many years, but I said to myself for those iconographic paintings maybe I don't need the whole human body. Feet and hands would symbolize and express what I'm trying to say. Hands would be touch, love, violence, killing, loving producing, making, labor - could be anything, you could tell so many things just by using simple hands. And feet, as I said, travel, adventure, going out, escape, elevation, being disconnected. Those could be some of the meanings behind those iconographical symbols and images I use.
<17> LT: These dark paintings, as black as they are, lend themselves to a kind of mystical reading. I know that Sufism has been something that has influenced you very much. I'm curious in what way they might have charged these pictures.
<18> FB: Sufism . . . I'm not a Sufi, by the way. I should mention that. I use also images from the Far East, Christianity, Islam, Sufism; but I don't define myself by those belief systems. But I use them to communicate. Sufism is really interesting because it's such a modest way of looking at life. I really like that. Especially Sufi music had a big impact on me. I don't know if you ever listen to Sufi music, but it starts very slowly, it takes you up and up, there is a climax going on in there. Then it takes you down. It takes you up again. It takes you down. It makes giant circles over and over and over, but each circle is slightly different than the previous circle. Back to my compositions, those compositions, they are all symmetrical to a certain point, but they do have a circular movement. A symbol starts from one corner as a positive image, then becomes a negative image, becomes a positive image again but this time, you know, the shape or the size is slightly different and then becomes something different. And that transformation is what you see in Sufism. It's basically being connected to nature, being part of nature. As I said, a very modest way of looking at life - and life itself is much more respected than anything else. That's what grabs my attention when I think of Sufism. And of course, the whirling dervish being part of Sufism plays a big part in my paintings - the way they turn, they spin around themselves and around each other, which represents the universe. The planets, the stars, they turn around themselves and they turn around each other. That's what they represent, and they try to be with the one when they do that spinning, turning. I like that idea, as I said, not that I believe in that, but I like the idea. It's such a beautiful, aesthetically appealing idea. So it's a very old tradition; I said to myself, maybe I can bring that tradition back, but changing it and making it look much more contemporary. And that's what those paintings are about.
<19> LT: Again, in that kind of circular motion.
<20> FB: Making a circle, but each circle is slightly different
<21> LT: You mentioned your background as a teacher and of course your Ph.D. is in education, and I wonder if you approach painting and art differently because . . . I always tell my own students that art is about communication. And that seems to be not a very obvious thing to people. You know, it's looking at a canvas, but you don't always think about it being about a kind of communication. I wonder if in that education background you have a different kind of perspective on the communicative aspects of painting.
<22> FB: I see myself as a researching painter, or researcher/painter - that's what I think of myself when I look at my paintings; and many people [have] said that about my paintings and about myself. I determine a subject, and I do research about that subject. It takes lots of time to do the research. It's not like I grab a canvas, my brushes and my paints and here is the crazy painter who is going to create something, like Van Gogh. (I have great respect for Van Gogh.) To me, it's not being in my studio, in my corner trying to create the most successful masterpiece ever. It's going out there, doing research, having lots of conversations with people. And I do conduct research as well; I'm a researcher because of my background. I said to myself, why don't I use that for my paintings? Do research that would give me a chance to have a very strong background, conceptual background that I can rely on. In fact, those black paintings here, I would consider them more like a micro-ethnographic study of multiple cultures. That's the way I would like to think of them. Because those images are symbols that are coming from different cultures, but yet they go through my filter. And they may change their meanings. They become something else, but they still have very strong references to their origins. And that's what a researcher does. You collect data, you analyze data, you come up with your own interpretation, and then you have to come up with a judgment. And those paintings are the judgments that I came up with at the end of my research.
<23> LT: More like a project.
<24> FB: Like a project. I teach that way, too. I never ever think of a single painting being the best representative of what I do. I never ever believe in that. I work in series and I will always work in series. I don't give up on an idea after two or three paintings. I stick with the idea, try to improve the idea, spend at least a couple years - four or five years - produce multiple pieces around the same idea. But, of course, the idea keeps changing as time goes by, and that's why I work in [a] series because the first painting of a series could be very different when you get to the end point in five years. It will look very different and the idea will look very different, much more improved or matured at the end of the research. That's all I can tell you.
<25> LT: I know there are many influences. You mentioned Van Gogh and I know that at other times you've talked about some of the color field artists, Barnett Newman and . . .
<26> FB: Mark Rothko has been a great inspiration for me.
<27> LT: You mentioned the post-painterly abstractionists, and then there's that kind of realism - abstraction/expressionism dichotomy. I wonder if, partially, it's about bringing some of those disparate things together - because it's really kind of amazing to look at one of your pictures and see all the different, very different influences that might be there.
<28> FB: Really good point. In fact, Dr. [Norman] Gambill [Chair of the Visual Arts Department at South Dakota State University] and I were talking about that a few days ago. Look at baroque, renaissance, gothic - late gothic, even romanticism didn't live long as trends. But most trends in the past had a long life. They were born, became an adult person - let's think of those trends in terms of human beings. They have a long life experience, and then they die at the end, but they leave some things behind so that their children will pick up and continue. But then you come to [the] sixties, especially sixties and seventies . . . I'll go back more, I'll say even . . . the fifties and then all of a sudden, many art trends, many of them. For them it's not a matter of surviving, or having a long life - long and healthy life - for them it's the matter of consumerism, you know. There is a need for a new trend. You could sell that new trend and we could make use of that new trend, so let's create a new trend for people. And they did that. I have nothing against that, but I said to myself, I'm not going to hurry up, I'm not going to rush, I'm not going to create a trend or brand where people will use, buy, believe for a while and then forget about it. I don't like that idea, but that's what happened in the sixties and fifties in my opinion. Not that we forget about those artist or those trends, but there were just so many of them where the development of an idea was not in depth . . . I don't know how to describe it. Just like Andy Warhol said, "If you wanna really see me, you have to look at the surface of my paintings." And that says a lot in terms of the art of the fifties and sixties - it's all on the surface, on purpose. But in my paintings I'll look back in history and I'll take whatever I can take to use, merge, to unify in my paintings. You see pop, you see op art in my paintings to a certain degree. You see abstract expressionism, you see post-painterly abstraction, and you see even romanticism in some of my paintings, definitely. You see baroque, that blue figure right in the center, the tall one, with the blue background. I was in love with Rembrandt when I was painting that figure. I definitely was in love with Rembrandt. Even though it has bright pop colors, you could still see the baroque influence in that painting. I think I'm not turning my back to the past. I rather face it and then take the best I can out of the past. And then I can make it contemporary. That's what I was trying to say before when I said there really isn't such a concept as "new" in art . . . it's all to improve the human condition. So I think we better take a look at the past and then learn from the past - not just learn but reuse it, change it . . . and make it new.
<29> LT: So there's value in reviving the past . . . and looking at those things that have been forgotten. In the two larger pieces language is used, and some in other pieces as well. In the one piece you have "LU" at the top and then "ST" at the bottom, and most people put it together to read "lust." Is it necessary to put those to together, I don't know. You're playing a certain game with the viewer, aren't you?
<30> FB: Yep, I am. And I like that game. I tell my students that all the time. I'm there for them to play games with them, and they can play games with me, too. But that's art, right? That's all there is about art. It's all a game that helps us to create a much more peaceful environment where we can really be in contact, be in touch, regardless of our differences or similarities. That's a game, I like that game. Yes, I play games in my paintings with words. In this one, for example, it has "GEL." In Turkish it is pronounced [gel], which means "come" - more like an invitation. But where I've reversed the "E," I don't know if I want you to come and join or not come and join, there is that game going on, for those who know Turkish of course! But then the one that has "lust," that's another game that I play because some people don't combine those two together. The "U" in that painting almost disappears, just like "lust." You disappear for an idea, for an ambition or obsession that you have when you have lust. That's what I think of lust. And that's how I play the game, using multiple meanings behind those words. Sometimes I will use words that don't have any meanings; it's part of the game, too. People will think, they will push themselves so hard to make, to bring the meaning out of those letters but they will just be letters. Sometimes what I will do, and you don't see that painting in this show, but you've seen it . . . the one called Monsters Do Exist. It had a giant "M" for monster. What I did was to do research about gothic typefaces, medieval typefaces. They kind of scare me! Medieval typefaces, they have so many details and they all have references to religion or belief systems. And . . . I don't know, putting so much meaning into a typeface scares me. I looked at maybe hundreds of medieval typefaces for "M," and I found a couple medieval typefaces that I liked. I altered that typeface and made it look much more modern. Because the idea of seeing monsters, having monsters, being monsters, in the twenty-first century, has a different aspect than having or being medieval monsters. So I changed the typeface and I gave it a much more contemporary look. That was a game, too. And people would go and look at that painting, they would see their semi-reflections, semi-ghost-reflections in that etched mirror and the sentence on that mirror would say "monsters do exist." The audience should come fairly close to the painting to see their semi-reflection in the mirror and to see that sentence, and the minute they see themselves, they also see that sentence on their forehead. Some people get offended. They ask me, "do you think we are monsters?" That wasn't the point. But monsters do exist - in human form sometimes - that's what I think. Some of those paintings are kind of dark and could be depressing to a certain point, to be honest with you. But that's another game. That's another game that I play.
<31> LT: And of course that begs another issue that is fairly central to what you're doing, which is the issue of fear.
<32> FB: Yes, definitely. I use mirrors more and more in my paintings - semi-reflective mirrors - you'll see yourself but it won't really look like you. That's also a game that I play. You push yourself, but it's a reflection - a ghost image of you in the mirror.
<33> LT: Is it a freeing element because it's not the exact you and it's a changed version, a different you?
<34> FB: Yes, because you don't see your details in the reflection. You see the whole, rather than the details, and that's what scares people. And that scares me, you know, seeing my ghost reflection in the mirror scares me. Because I want to know what I look like, each time I look in the mirror, I'm so accustomed to that and I want to see that. But I don't offer that comfort zone in my paintings. In fact, I try to stay away from that comfort zone for myself and for my audience.
<35> LT: It seems like an issue of certainty . . .
<36> FB: Identity is another . . . [the] search for identity in those semi-reflections is another question that I bring out.
<37> LT: You work very divergently because you have these very abstract pieces (although there are some recognizable things in them) and then some very, very realistic - sort of neo-realism. I wonder if those are two separate things for you or if they are complementary or how those two . . .
<38> FB: They are separate things for me. I think of art as one giant room with many doors. That's the way I think of art. And each door opens up to a different definition, a different adventure. My job as a researcher/painter is to open up as many doors as I can. But, I just don't want to open the doors and walk away, I want to open the doors and get inside the room and then see what's in there - discover, invent things that are foreign to me. That's why you see a wide variety of changes in style and subjects because each style and each subject or each interest area is a door that I just opened. And I need to probably do more research and produce more and then see what's inside the room. That's the way I like to picture art in my mind.
<39> LT: They tend not to inform one another?
<40> FB: Sometimes they do. Sometimes they do help each other. But I learn more when they are really disconnected from each other. I learn more because I see a different face of mine - I see a different Fatih, a different individual producing, making those canvases [the iconographic paintings] than when I'm producing those other [figurative] canvases.
<41> LT: They are, especially the females, which most of these are, have a sense of quietude. I don't know if it's distance but it's as though we're seeing these nudes "intellectually nude." They're inner thoughts may be laid bare or their inner concerns may be laid bare, or their vulnerability may be laid bare.
<42> FB: Yep, they don't look naked. I talk about that in my figure drawing classes - I tell them, "Look, there's a difference between nude and naked. Being nude and being naked are two different things. Very different things. When you're naked you're on your own, you don't have the purpose of people watching you and studying you. You're naked when you're taking a shower, right? You're naked just before you put your dress on. But you're nude when you're sitting out there in front of people and knowing that those people are observing you, analyzing you, studying you. That's the difference between being nude and naked." There are some painters that I really like, not that my work - my figurative work represents or has anything to do with what those artists created. For example, Edgar Degas had [the] incredible idea of depicting nudes in a naked fashion. You would see those nude people in his drawings and paintings - they wouldn't know that they are naked; they wouldn't know that they are being watched. In my figures, it's the exact opposite. All of my figures know that they are being watched, they are being studied - but not because they are naked, [but because] they are nude. That's the difference between Degas and what I do here. That's why you see a more intellectual side of the model; they don't look like they are in everyday settings, and I like that because it's not an everyday setting. You don't ordinarily draw or paint people in an everyday setting, in everyday life. You do it for a specific purpose in a specific environment. That's why they kind of look detached from everyday life.
<43> LT: And of course your own self-portrait is here as well. When I first saw that I didn't know who it was, but I knew it was an artist or a poet or somebody like that. I wonder what you see when you see that picture?
<44> FB: Well . . . if somebody asked me - and you asked me, anyway - which one is the most different out of [all of these] figures, I would say that one [the self-portrait] is the most different one. I didn't do it for artistic reasons, to be honest with you. Yes, there is composition . . . design principles, visual elements. I did it because I wanted to be connected with my past. I [looked] like this when I was first [in the] States twelve or eleven years ago, and doing that painting kind of helped me remember my past. I even thought of not putting the painting in the show because I did it for such personal, private reasons. I'm glad I have it in the show, but it was a big struggle to decide what to do with this painting. Compared to my other figures, I think that one looks a little more . . . expressive . . . I don't know, maybe a little darker than other figures that I have in the show. It took me only six, seven hours to finish that piece and I needed that urgency in producing, in making that painting. I didn't want to spend any time thinking about what was going to come up next when I painted that picture. That doesn't happen in my life and in my art. I like to sit down, think about a composition, do lots of thinking - never ever sketch, barely sketch a painting before I start. But I do lots of mental, visual thinking before I start. I don't do sketches because I don't want to take away from the adventure. In this one, I didn't even have that. I grabbed a photograph that I had taken eleven years ago. I said to myself, "I'm going to paint that canvas without thinking, looking at that photograph and see what's going to happen." I did that.
<45> LT: It's a nice piece.
<46> FB: Yeah, it's kind of baroque . . . it reminds me of Velázquez and Rembrandt to a certain degree.
<47> LT: And yet it's more solid than some of these others where more is taken away.
<48> FB: Yeah, I mean there is still a concept behind that painting and the paintings that are going to come next, in the future. I have an idea for future projects; the idea is to paint people in animal poses. Some are very aggressive, very wild. You see two examples of that idea in this show, but they are not the best examples of what I am trying to say here. You'll see in the future, when I start producing those paintings. In this one I wanted to paint myself as a mountain. I'll stick with the idea of mountain, ocean and I'll paint people, portraits, but the texture, the composition will remind people that they're not only looking at the human body, but part of nature. But the part of nature that I'm going to pick is not going to have anything to do with the human body. That's why I'll pick subjects like oceans, sea, river, mountains, the sky, fire, and I'll paint in that fashion. It's hard to explain what I'm going to do in the future, but you'll see what I'm trying to say. Those figures, the cat, the birds, and my nudes here, as you said, they look detached from life, they pose for the painter and you feel that. The figures that I'm going to make in the future won't have anything to do with this attitude. Those figures will be quite inhumane, inhuman. Can I use that term?
<49> LT: Sure.
<50> FB: I won't say much because I don't want to take the excitement out of those projects. You'll see.
<51> LT: I look forward to it.
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