ANTWERP.- It is sometimes said that a work of art is grasped in the accomplishment of a kind of ‘re-creation’: the re-creation of a creation, an intuitive reconstruction of the actions that brought it into being. This thought appeals to me because as a painter, I know for sure that the painting should not convey a message, that the art of painting is not a means to an end. The division of roles proclaimed by elementary oppositions such as maker-observer, artist-viewer, author-audience, does not clarify what painting is about. It says nothing about the dispute of which the painting is the stake.

That dispute is between the painter who beholds and the first beholder who paints, who devises ruses and tricks to obtain satisfaction. Of course, it is a game: a game that turns into a tactical joust. Strictly speaking, there is no strategy, nor a set course. There is, however, a succession of flashing actions and measured reactions, provocative moves and thoughtful countermoves, an occasional uppercut to overturn the game. To set the scene, I often cover the canvas with a monochrome layer. This sets the tone. Then different phases follow, each bringing in a particular technique and thus developing its own temporality. Firstly, fierce, pointed manoeuvres, mostly in acrylic paint: in scattered order, the arrangement of opponents, set-up sham battles between fragmentary compositions and composite figures that all stem from the conjurer's box of fantasy, imagination, memory and experience. Thereafter, the use of oil paint imposes a certain temporization, also a tempering. Then correspondences and consonances are effected, a form of balance sought. It is therefrom that the painting will derive its right to exist. But the quarrel is not settled in favour of one side or the other. It ends with the exhaustion of the deployed conflict substance, on a kind of truce: in a fragile balance, an equilibrium on the verge of collapse.

My paintings are arrested turmoil. Thus, they bear witness to the nature of the work from which they spring. But in this state I can equally recognize a reflection of life. They can be inhabited: ‘jazzy house’. Therein lies their sociality. After all, I also paint for the others, for this other beholder who invests the painting. The painting must exist and persist as an operation, happening ever again as the spectacle of that skirmish.

Ingrid Castelein, August 2024.