I’ve always approached painting as a process of carving away and revealing, the way I imagine a sculptor approaches sculpting. Not modeling but carving. I bring this up because this unfinished painting, Sub Rosa, is a pretty good example of my approach.
There are many ways to talk about painting, of course. I used to talk about time a lot–dancing in time and suchlike. It occurred to me one day that I could remove all time references from my discussions about art making and it would make absolutely no difference.
Because of my interest in time, I used to put huge stock in spontaneity; it was an important aspect of the way I thought about art making. But what does spontaneity mean? Spontaneous compared to what? A lot of bad contemporary art are attacks on straw men standing in for the ‘what.’