“As everyone knows, we have been of the diktats of the art world. It has
achieved the opposite of what was set forth at the beginning of the century,
which was a crying need for freedom. I find myself wondering whatever happened
to this famous freedom in painting, for which su many artists fought so
bitterly. Bacon, and perhaps the young Alquin, are the
only ones of our time to have realised the importance of it.
Why did painting take the easy road of derision, the path that leads to
death rather than life? Was it just too much? Was mankind not yet mature
enough? Was there no one else who had the awareness or the conscience to make
this effort of perception and execution? There was an impressive heritage at
stake.. . Alas, the history of civilisation is rocked
by these disastrous roadblocks to the progress of thought during these long ice
ages.
Now like the phoenix we can begin to move the ashes around our bodies. and emerge carefully, so as not to break.
I personally feel numb on the flesh,
as if I had been beaten for centuries... However the phoenix is in all of us,
we know it is, and it is a friend.”