Fragments

66cm x 100cm

acrylic and oil on MDF

I paint because I do not pray. 

This stems from a popular statement that suggests: Art is a form of prayer. I do not agree. 

Praying is a passive activity. It is a hopeful mental request for forgiveness, help, relief, ... anything that triggers those that are apt to religious beliefs, to connect with the deities they associate with, in the hope that something positive will happen; or to give thanks for a moment of good luck, as if that was a personal present. A prayer is a futile attempt at trying to influence that over which we have absolutely no control. 

Creating art, on the other hand, involves active physical action on the part of artists to express their personal vision, to bring into the world what their mind processed and/or conceived.  

I see no relation between the two. 

Agreed, for some artists the conception and execution of an idea may stem from a strong connection with their spirituality, their God. I also understand that some viewers experience enhanced devotional emotions when absorbing the power and aura of a captivating artwork. For those individuals it is a fact that art is or can be a form of prayer.

What I object to is the collective need of believers to interpret and stretch religious doctrine to make it fit every aspect of life - in this case art - smear it on and generalize it wherever they can.  A desperate attempt to find confirmation that what they believe in is not an illusion; something to hold on to and justify it. The more inclusive they can make it, the closer it becomes to be Truth. A deliberate erosion of doubt. 

I am atheist. 

I am grateful that my parents enrolled me in Catholic schools, because the level of education was superior to the public school system in Belgium. 

Jesuits have a long tradition of being educators. Over the centuries, the quality of their teachings has produced numerous famous atheists who strayed from religion and made ground-breaking scientific discoveries that contradicted religious principles. Religion, being a form of control over the human mind, was threatened by these provable discoveries, and the early scientists ended up in trouble with the Church. 

During my 13th year, I attended mass on Sunday mornings, as it was expected in school that we did, joining the majority of the people, the respected citizens. I clearly remember one service when the priest during his sermon rejected science as being evil and urged the congregation to adhere to the "facts" of the Bible. It went against everything provable that I had learned in school. 

I looked around me. The medieval gothic church was packed with people, and I noticed not one looking down and shaking their head, or raising their hand to protest the nonsense that was being professed. I realized that none of these people, among them doctors, attorneys, teachers, business owners, factory workers, etc., had a sense of logical reasoning, developed enough to raise an objection. They were content in giving up thinking for themselves and allowing their intelligence being polluted by the self-serving claims of their priest.

I was too young and too shy to start a discussion there, and expose myself to guaranteed scorn. My parents were the owners of a prominent retail business in the city. Many knew me to be one of their two sons. Word would spread fast.

I quietly stood up from my chair and left the building. Walking home, I concluded that I did not belong among all those people, and that religion was not for me. If it made no sense, then I could easily live without it. I had no need for it. This conclusion had been brewing for a while.

Arriving home I asked my parents if it was OK if I no longer attended church services. They answered that I could do as I saw fit. And I never went back.

At school we were still obliged to be present during the weekly service at the chapel and during the courses on religion, but it no longer meant anything to me. I had escaped the grip, and felt freed. I had become atheist.

The following decade I felt the power of being brainwashed from a very young age into believing and adhering to religious principles. It takes strong willpower and courage to shake them off. I was on my own and had to find my own way. No priest was telling me any longer what to think or how to lead my life. At times it was scary, confusing, lonely, but the big reward was feeling the freedom of being able to open my mind without that ever-oppressing cruel threat of doom and punishment if we strayed from God. 

And so yes, it annoys me when someone tells me that I have talent and calls it a gift from God. Or that they see the hand of God in my work. Or that art in general is a form of prayer. Or that it relieves suffering. I firmly reject such weak insecurity or corruptness of the mind. 

I do not pray; hence I paint.

A few years ago I walked into a bank in Austin, TX to open an account. The account manager started chatting with the question where I was from originally. I speak 5 languages well, yet all with a strong accent, so it's a question that I often have to answer to break ice. The conversation went along fine until the manager made an unsolicited reference to religion and being a good Christian. I forgot what prompted that, but I did not take the bait. Nevertheless, his following statement was that people who do not believe in God can't be trusted. According to him - and I have heard and read similar exclamations from others - "without belief and devotion to God, morals are impossible". I did not proceed with opening an account in that bank. 

If I am supposedly not capable of having morals because I do not believe in any God, and my artwork does not have roots in praying of any kind, then what am I doing?

I relate to science. This beautiful planet Earth, all the life on it, the solar system and the galaxy to which it belongs, the Universe and its workings... that all intrigues me. I am not a scientist. Most of the new discoveries and theories are beyond my comprehension. They grow ever more complex as humanity starts to gain tiny little steps forward in understanding what goes on all around us, and how it is all linked via - to us - invisible powers and energies and waves. From the complexity of bird intelligence to the interconnected relationships of tree roots via subsoil fungi with neighbouring trees, to dark matter and warped gravity in space, and bent light waves and the unpredictable behavior of time inside black holes... in all that I find inspiration for my artwork. 

If anything, my artwork is a form of science.

Not really. But it certainly finds some origin there, in the unknown, in what we still don't understand and perhaps never will. 

Religion - Judaism and Christianity in this case - found its origin there too. The first pages of the Old Testament are basically a primitive prehistoric theory trying to explain the origin of life on Earth and us humans that took hold and was passed along for countless generations among a specific tribe in the Middle East, until they learned to write and someone among them started writing down the ancient stories that grandparents kept repeating to their grandchildren, generation after generation. Historically important figures and events and ideologies kept being added as time produced them. Eventually this bundle of ancient stories came to be known as the Bible. There is nothing holy about it. 

I have used religious icons and symbols in certain paintings. Not because they are holy. Rather because history interests me, and I find the history and evolution of science and our constant search for the origin of things and their workings fascinating. 

Writing is a science too. It is the science of remote communication. The symbols that are used in writing evolve and change with the rise and fall of civilizations. Their meaning is fragile. It gets lost when no longer in use. Cuneiform, for example, has only been deciphered a few decades ago. For centuries, it was known to be an ancient form of writing, but nobody could extract the slightest meaning from the slabs. We were only able to admire them for their visual abstract beauty and historical significance. In that capacity, they qualified as ancient Art. 

If humanity finds a way to survive the mass extinction it is currently responsible of causing due to overpopulation and overconsumption of natural resources, some day the current types of script will become obsolete too, and will be replaced by other forms of recording communication. Technology and internet also will become extinct. What shape will future forms of remote communication take? What will they look like. What will future humans write about?

This is what I think about when I create my artwork. 

The essence of my work concerns the path of our origins and of our future.